CO129-529-4 China- extraterritoriality 23-11-1931 - 31-12-1931 — Page 31

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2.

undecypherable) of 4 areas would prejudice Chinese

case for resisting Japan's and France's claims to other

reserved areas elsewhere. I countered this as false

logic.

Shanghai, Tientsin, Hankow and Canton were all

recognised centres of international trade with no

political facets. Give us them and thereby strengthen

Chinese case against same political reserved areas.

4. At one moment he touched on question of

(? concessions) and argued that to include Tientsin and

Shameen would be to perpetuate concession status

indefinitely.

all the case:

I proved to him that this was not at

retention of jurisdiction did not

necessarily entail retention of concessions regarding

which our offer of January 1927 stood on record: but

I admitted that conversely we could not abandon juris-

diction in those areas and retain concessions. As this

was becoming delicate ground I switched discussion back

to restatement of our minimum, i.e. 4 areas and 10 years

and on leaving begged him to reflect most seriously be-

fore deliberately turning down this golden opportunity

of settling with us. He replied that no one would

regret failure more than he but that he would not dare

to give way over reserved areas which neither his

government nor May conference would ever countenance. His parting words were, "I hope our next meeting will be more satisfactory.

5. On the whole his attitude was only what I expected. And presumably the right course now is to await developments and show no sign of weakening. while I may be able to use the interval to lobby in influential quarters.

Addressed to Foreign Office No.107, April 19th, repeated to Peking. Copy to Shanghai.

Mean-