Directory_and_Chronicle_1937 — Page 169

EXTRATERRITORIALITY

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7. The object of the first treaties was to secure recognition by China of Great Britain's equality with herself and to define and regulate the extrater- ritorial status of British subjects. Relations between the two countries having thus been placed on a footing of equality and mutual respect, Great Britain was content that her nationals should continue to bear those responsibilities and to labour under those disabilities which respect for the sovereignty of China entailed upon them. Conditions did not permit the general opening of the interior of China and the residence of foreigners has consequently continued down to the present day to be restricted to a limited number of cities known as Treaty Ports.

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8. His Majesty's Government recognise the defects and inconveniences of the system of consular jurisdiction to which the Government of China have on various occasions drawn attention. In 1902 in Article 12 of the Treaty of Commerce between Great Britain and China signed in that year, Majesty's Government stated their readiness to relinquish their extraterritorial rights when they were satisfied that the state of Chinese laws the arrangements for their administration and other considerations warranted' them in so doing. They have since watched with appreciation the progress which China has made in the assimilation of western legal principals to which reference is made in your Note under reply and they have observed with deep interest the facts set out and recommendations made in the report of the Commission on Ex- traterritoriality in the year 1926.

9. More recently in the declaration which they published in December 1926 and the proposals which they made to the Chinese authorities in January 1927 His Majesty's Government have given concrete evidence of their desire to meet in a spirit of friendship and sympathy the legitimate aspirations of the Chinese people. They have already travelled some distance along the road marked out in those documents and they are willing to examine in collabora- tion with the Chinese Government the whole problem of extraterritorial juris- diction with a view to ascertaining what further steps in the same direction it may be possible to take at the present time.

10. His Majesty's Government would however observe that the promulga- tion of codes embodying Western legal principles represents only one portion of the task to be accomplished before it would be safe to abandon in their entirety the special arrangements which have hitherto regulated the residence of foreigners in China. In order that those reforms should become a living reality it appears to His Majesty's Government to be necessary that Western legal principles should be understood and be found acceptable by the people at large, no less than by their rulers, and that the Courts which administer these laws should be free from interference and dictation at the hands, not only of military chiefs, but of groups and associations who either set up arbitrary and illegal tribunals of their own or attempt to use legal courts for the fur- therance of political objects rather than for the administration of equal justice between Chinese and Chinese and between Chinese and foreigners. Not until these conditions are fulfilled in a far greater measure than appears to be the case to-day will it be practicable for British merchants to reside, trade and own property throughout the territories of China with the same equality of freedom and safety as these privileges are accorded to Chinese merchants in Great Britain. Any agreement purporting to accord with privileges to British merchants would remain for some time to come a mere paper agreement to which it would be impossible to give effect in practice. Any attempt preina- turely to accord such privileges would not only be of no benefit to British mer- chants but might, involve the Government and people of China in political and economic difficulties.

11. So long as these conditions subsist there appears to be no practicable alternative to maintaining though perhaps in a modified form the Treaty Port system that has served for nearly a century to regulate intercourse between China and British subjects with her domain. Some system of extraterri- toriality is the natural corollary for the maintenance of the Treaty Port sys-