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serve as a channel of approach to the President. I accordingly explained in some detail and very confidentially the difficulties I was encountering with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, on account of his unyielding attitude towards the questions of the excluded areas, giving the substance of my conversation with Dr. Wang of two days before. I emphasised the fact that I had practically gone so far as to offer to meet the Chinese Government over three out of the four major points, namely, foreign co-judges, evocation and criminal jurisdiction, if they would meet us over the fourth point, that of the excluded areas. I then proceeded to show my hand still further by intimating that, while Shanghai, and also Tientsin, were obviously outside the possibility of any discussion, there might be room for I concluded with a hint that the compromise in regard to Canton and Hankow. admiral might possibly feel disposed to put in a word in the proper quarter with a view to smoothing things over between our two countries by explaining the reasonableness of our minimum requirements. The admiral listened sympa- thetically, and I received the impression that what I had said might be repeated to the President.
Conversation with Minister for Foreign Affairs on April 1.
20. On the evening of the same day, when taking leave of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and arranging the final details of the exchange of letters regarding the activities of the Kuomintang in Malaya, I took the opportunity of enquiring of Dr. Wang whether he had further considered our conversation of two days before and was now prepared to make any advance on his offer (in respect of the excluded areas) of Shanghai alone. He replied that it was quite impossible to offer more, and that even that offer, which had yet to be approved by the Central Political Council, was dependent on such exclusion being purely temporary. I reminded him that our offer, in respect of the surrender of criminal jurisdiction, was also strictly conditional on our being met over the excluded areas, and I urged him to weigh most carefully the responsibility which he would incur if through an unreasonably unyielding attitude towards this latter point he deliberately threw away this opportunity of concluding a settlement so favourable to his country.
Conversation with Dr. Wang Ch'ung-hui on April 2.
21. Lastly, on the day of my departure I went to see Dr. Wang Ch'ung-hui, who, in the course of a frank discussion, showed a slightly more accommodating attitude. We pressed one another hard, and finally he reduced our points of difference to two, the excluded areas and the duration of the special arrange- ments to be set up under the proposed treaty (which I had so far insisted must last, like the treaty itself, for at least ten years); if we would reduce our demands on these two points, the Chinese Government would meet us, and he concluded by throwing out a hint that the rendition of Shameen might facilitate a settle- ment, a suggestion which I had already recommended for your consideration more than a year before (see paragraph 6 of my telegram No. 85 from Nanking of the 16th February, 1930). Throughout our conversation Dr. Wang Ch'ung-hui made no secret of his extreme anxiety to reach a settlement before the 5th May, the date fixed for the convocation of the People's Convention.
Representations made by and Reply returned to Chinese Minister in London.
22. On my arrival in Peking on the 4th April, I received your telegrams informing me of the representations made by the Chinese Minister in London and of the memorandum handed to Mr. Sze on the 2nd April stating the attitude of His Majesty's Government, namely, that, if the safeguards considered essential by them were accepted by the Chinese Government, they would almost certainly be prepared to surrender, not only the rights of evocation and foreign co-judges, but also criminal jurisdiction; that, as regards the outstanding major safeguard, the exclusion of Shanghai, Tientsin, Canton and Hankow from the new arrange- ment, these areas presented special problems both on account of the size and complexity of the interests which had grown up in them and of the fact that other Powers besides the British Empire were intimately concerned; that His Majesty's Government trusted that the Chinese Government would realise the reasonable nature of the attitude which they had adopted and the necessity for safeguards which they considered essential in this most important and difficult.
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