CO129-529-3 China- Boxer Indemnity (Application) Bill 21-2-1931 - 21-2-1931 — Page 37

41

16.2

China Indemnity

Titchfield, Major the Marquess of Todd, Capt. A. J.

Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement Turton, Robert Hugh Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey)

19 FEBRUARY 1931

Ward, Lieut. Col. Sir A. Lambert Wells, Sydney R.

Williams. Charles (Devon. Torquay) Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U ) Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount

CHINA INDEMNITY (APPLICATION) BILL.

Not Amended (in the Standing Com- mittee), further considered.

CLAUSE 1.-Repeal of 15 & 16 Geo. 5. c. 41 and provisions as to future appli- cation of the China Indemnity Fund and receipts on account of the China Indemnity.)

Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSON: I beg to move in paragraph 1, line 21, after the word " persons," to insert the words

including persons who are British sub- jects."

This Amendment deals with the only point in the Bill to which I take excep- tion. In other respects it carries out, substantially, the policy of my right hon. Friend the late Foreign Secretary. In order to explain the Amendment may I summarise what the Bill does. We are handing over £11,500,000 to the Chinese Government at once and during the next few years, and this sum is divided into four parts. We are giving £265,000 to the Hong Kong University-with which I agree £200,000 to the Universities' China Committee in London, £7,000,000 to the China Purchasing Commission, and the residue, to the extent of £4,000,000, we are handing over to the Board of Trustees in China for purposes of mutual benefit to Great Britain and China. That, shortly, is what the Bill does. I have absolutely no objection to the first three purposes. In regard to the £7,000,000 which is being handed over to the China Purchasing Commission, the British Government will have a voice in the way that money is expended because the Commission will be nominated from a Board of Trustees, or a panel, reccm- mended by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

My Amendment merely applies to the £4,000,000, that is to say, to the residue of £4,000,000 which is being handed over to China to be expended on purposes mutually beneficial to Great Britain and China. In regard to this £4,000,000, and

No. 63

(Application) Bill.

Womersley, W. J.

Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton

TELLERS

FOR THE

1614

NOES.-

Sir George Penny and Sir Victor Warrender.

this is really the main point, not only

is the British Government not going to have any voice or say in the matter at all but there is nothing in the Bill to say that any British subject is going to have any voice in it. These £4,000,000 are to be absolutely under the control of the board of trustees, and the board of trustees is to be appointed by the Chinese Government. To be perfectly fair I should say that in the Notes that have been exchanged between our Minis- ter in Peking, Sir Miles Lampson, and the Chinese Secretary for Foreign Affairs, this question of British subjects is mentioned. In the Note addressed by the Chinese Minister to Sir Miles Lamp- son there is this sentence:

"For the control, apportionment and administration of the above-mentioned en- dowment the Chinese Government will duly appoint a board of trustees in China which will include a certain number of British members."

But that is a very casual and perfunctory statement put in at the end of a sen- tence. Sir Miles Lampson, when he re- plied to that Note, merely reiterated in identical words the promise made by the Chinese Government. Surely, when you are handing over £4,000,000 of British money" for purposes mutually beneficial to this country and China," provision ought to be made for the inclusion of British members upon that board. I do not doubt in the least that the Chinese Government made that promise in per- fectly good faith. I am sure they did. But Governments pass away in China as they do in this country, and in future a Chinese Government may arise which will put a different interpretation upon those particulars words in the Note.

The difficulties of interpretation have already arisen in China in regard to the handing over by the American Govern- ment of their share of the indemnity. What happened was that a board was set up in China, composed under an agree- ment, of American citizens and Chinese citizens. Gradually as time went by all the American citizens were ousted from that board. I think I am right in saying that. At any rate, I know that when I

A 2