§ 26. Sir JOHN POWERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the text of the answer which he gave to the request of the Chinese Republic for the immediate abrogation of extra-territorial rights?
Mr. A. HENDERSONThe document in question is a long one and, with the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate the text in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
§ Following is the document:
§ The following Note was presented to the Chinese Government by Sir M. Lampson on 12th August.
§ Peking, 10th August, 1929.
§ Sir,
§ I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 27th April, in which you inform me of the desire of the National Government of the Republic of China that the restrictions imposed on the jurisdictional sovereignty of China by the system of extra-territoriality now in force should be removed at the earliest possible date, with a view to the assumption of jurisdiction by China over all nationals in her domain.
§ 2. I have communicated the contents of your letter to my Government, and I am now instructed to transmit to you a reply in the following sense:
§ 3. Animated by the friendly feelings which they have always entertained towards the Government and people of China, His Majesty's Government have given their sympathetic consideration to the request of the Chinese Government relating to the abolition of extra-territorial jurisdiction in China. The high importance of this subject in its bearing both on the political development of China and the future relations between China and Great 581 Britain appears to demand that it should be closely examined from every aspect. In particular, a just appreciation of the reasons for which, and the manner in which, the present system of extraterritoriality came into existence seems essential to a consideration of the proper method for dealing with the problem.
§ 4. The system of extra-territoriality in force in China has its root deep down in the past. For thousands of years, before science had improved communications, the Chinese people were secluded from the rest of the world by deserts and the ocean, and they developed a civilisation and a polity peculiar to themselves. A wide gulf was thus fixed between Europe and America on the one hand and China on the other.
§ 5. In particular, the conception of international relations as being the intercourse between equal and independent States—a conception which was woven into the very texture of the political ideas of the nations of the West—was entirely alien to Chinese modes of thought. When traders of the West first found their way to the coasts of China the Chinese Government found it difficult to allow them freely to enter into their country and mingle with their people, nor did they recognise that the nations to which they belonged were the equals of China. These traders were therefore confined to a small section of a single city in one corner of the Empire, and, while on the one hand they were subjected to many disabilities and to grave humiliations, on the other hand, by a species of amorphous and unregulated extra-territoriality, which was the natural outcome of these conditions, the responsibility of managing their own affairs and maintaining order amongst themselves was in some measure left to their own initiative.
§ 6. Relations continued for many years upon this insecure and unsatisfactory footing. Friction was often dangerously intense and conflicts not infrequently arose, generally out of demands that some innocent person should be surrendered for execution to expiate, perhaps, an accidental homicide, or that foreign authority should assume the responsibility for enforcing the revenue laws of China.
§ 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 extra-territorial status of British subjects. Relations between the two countries having thus been placed upon 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.
§ 8. His Majesty's Government recognise the defects and inconveniences of the system 582 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, His 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 principles, to which reference is made in your note under reply, and they have observed with deep interest the facts set out and the recommendations made in the report of the commission on extra-territoriality 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 collaboration with the Chinese Government the whole problem of extra-territorial jurisdiction, 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 promulgation 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 these 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 furtherance 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 far greater measure than appears to be the case today 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 such 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 prematurely to accord such privileges would not only be no 583 benefit to British merchants, 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 the intercourse between China and the British subjects within her domain. Some system of extra-territoriality is the natural corollary to the maintenance, even in modified form, of the treaty port system, and the problem as it presents itself to His Majesty's Government at the present moment is to discover what further modifications in that system, beyond those already made and alluded to above, it would be desirable and practicable to effect.
§ 12. His Majesty's Government await further proposals from the National Government as to the procedure now to be adopted for examining this question, and they instruct me to assure your Excellency that they will continue to maintain towards any such proposals the same friendly and helpful attitude to which your Excellency has paid so generous a tribute in the concluding paragraph of your note under reply.
§ I avail, etc.
§ MILES W. LAMPSON.