893.5045/131
The Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs (Shen) to the Italian Minister in China (Cerruti), Senior Minister86
Mr. Minister: With regard to the sanguinary affair at Shanghai, I had the honor to address to Your Excellency on the 1st instant a note in which I begged you to issue urgent instructions to the consular authorities of Shanghai in order to immediately set at liberty the arrested persons and to come to an agreement with the Special [Page 655] Commissioner for Foreign Affairs of that city, to prevent a repetition of similar incidents.
Contrary to my expectation, fresh reports of an ominous character continue to come to me, reports according to which the police of the International Concession of Shanghai on the 1st of June again fired on the crowd, killing 8 persons and wounding 18, while those persons who had been arrested have not all been set at liberty. Other reports are to the effect that the greater number of the victims have been wounded in the back while none of the police were either killed or wounded, which proves that the firing was in no way justified.
The violent attitude of the authorities of the International Concession, which has excited the dissatisfaction of the public in general, has created the gravest consequences, notably the declaration of strikes by merchants and Chinese workers of Shanghai.
So little respect for the elementary principles of humanity is disclosed by the authorities of the International Concession, who are entirely responsible, that I find myself constrained to address once more to Your Excellency a protest of the most energetic character.
Moreover, I pray Your Excellency to be so good as to communicate the foregoing to the Ministers of the interested powers and to send without delay the most urgent instructions to the consular authorities of Shanghai so that firing, which was the original cause of this incident, shall cease immediately, in order to avoid further bloodshed.