793.003/34
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs, Department of State (MacMurray)
Prince de Béarn, Counselor of the French Embassy, called on me yesterday (July 19) to say that the French Minister in Peking had advised his Government that M. Georges Padoux, a French citizen who is in the service of the Chinese Government as an adviser in the Audit, has gone back to France with instructions from the Chinese Government to present informally to the French Foreign Office the question of relinquishing extraterritoriality in China. The Prince also mentioned that an Englishman in the Chinese service—he could not recall who, but thought it not unlikely that it was Bertram Lenox Simpson (“Putnam Weale”),—had been similarly commissioned to approach the British Government on the subject. He inquired whether we had been approached in regard to this, and I told him that we had not; that there had, of course, been considerable discussion as to the question of extraterritoriality, but that no definite proposal, either formal or informal, had been communicated to the Department.
He then inquired what would be our attitude with regard to such a suggestion. I told him I thought I was safe in saying that we stood upon the position expressed in our treaty of 1903—namely, that we would welcome such a development of Chinese legislation, judicial procedure, and personnel as would warrant us in abandoning the extraterritoriality system; but that we could not feel that the Chinese Government had yet made sufficient progress along those lines to warrant our submitting American interests to Chinese jurisdiction; and that we could therefore do no more, in all probability, than consider sympathetically any suggestions which the Chinese might find fit to make with respect to the means of hastening the progress of the desired reforms.
He said that he understood the position of the French Government would be substantially the same, and asked me to advise him in the event of any approach being made to us on this subject in behalf of the Chinese Government.