THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
July 24, 1931.
SECTION 1.
D
193
[F 4057/34/10]
(No. 806.) Sir,
No. 1.
Sir M. Lampson to Mr. A. Henderson.-(Received July 24.)
Résumé of Position at Beginning of March.
Peking, June 8, 1931.
WITH reference to my despatch dated Nanking, the 6th June, I have the honour to submit the following report on the negotiations which I have been conducting during the past three months on the subject of the adjustment of matters relating to jurisdiction over British subjects in China. The position when I arrived in Nanking on the 1st March for the initiation of detailed negotiations was briefly this: Following on the exchange of formal correspondence in 1929 and the opening of preliminary discussions in the early part of the year 1930, the proposals of His Majesty's Government for the gradual abolition of British extra-territorial rights in China had been communicated to the Chinese Government on the 11th September, 1930. To these proposals the Chinese Govern- ment had replied by putting in, in turn, on the 1st December, a counter-draft, which not only omitted the four major safeguards contained in the British draft (evocation, foreign co-judges, reservation of criminal jurisdiction and exclusion of certain areas), but also deleted or emasculated the greater part of the more detailed safeguards concerning matters such as guarantees in regard to taxation, the operation of the Chinese courts, limitation of police jurisdiction, arrest, domiciliary visits, rights in immovable property, expropriation, immunity of shipping, arbitration, rights of business organisation, discrimination, and so on. A copy of this Chinese counter-draft had been immediately forwarded to His Majesty's Government, and my detailed comments had followed
on the 10th December. At the same time I explained to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that these papers would require careful consideration by His Majesty's Govern- ment, whose instructions could hardly reach me before about the end of February, when I undertook to be again in Nanking with a view to resuming the negotiations if it were possible to do so.
Chinese Memorandum, December 17, 1930.
Nevertheless on the 17th December, the Minister for Foreign Affairs addressed to me, as well as to the representatives of the other Powers concerned, a communication expressing the regret and disappointment of the Chinese people at the delay in concluding the negotiations, and the earnest hope that a satis- factory solution would be reached by the end of February, ending with the veiled threat that the Chinese Government still believed it would be possible to settle the matter by negotiation, and that it would not be necessary for them to take a different course of action. It was understood that this move was due to the desire of the Chinese Government, for internal political reasons, to reach a settlement, or to be able to show that a settlement had in principle been reached, before the People's Convention fixed for May 1931. To this communication I had, in due course, replied with your authority, reminding the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the Chinese counter-proposals to our draft had only been received on the 1st December, and that they were even then on their way to London for con- sideration by His Majesty's Government. His Majesty's Government did not, therefore, understand the necessity for such a message from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and hesitated to believe that it cloaked any intention on the part of the Chinese Government to prejudice the normal course of the negotiations by precipitate action.
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