793.00/76: Telegram
The Chargé in China ( Mayer ) to the Secretary of State
Peking
,
July 10,
1925—10 p.m.
[Received July 10—7:30 p.m.]
[Received July 10—7:30 p.m.]
270. Following from MacMurray. Your 142, July 9, 3 p.m.84
- 1.
- My own conviction is that the present ebullition of national self-consciousness on the part of the Chinese Government can be diverted from actions and uncontrolled hostility to foreign rights and interests only by consistent and scrupulous observation by the powers of the obligations already undertaken by them at the Washington Conference for the alleviation of what the Chinese regard as anomalous inequalities imposed upon them by the treaty. I, therefore, feel that we should resist any temptation to deviate from the course laid down by the Washington treaty and resolutions, and that we would be in a stronger position if the contemplated purposes of those agreements were to fail through the fault of the Chinese than if we were to deny the Chinese the opportunity for a reconsideration by the treaty powers of the several problems which the Washington Conference offered them the opportunity to discuss. In the face of the present agitation against foreign treaty rights, a strict adherence to the Washington Conference program seems to me the only safe road.
- 2.
- I feel that British note No. 683, July 7th, presents considerations which the powers strongly urged upon the consideration of the Chinese, but that to make these considerations a condition precedent to a fulfillment of our international obligation would merely inflame a popular psychology already abnormal and prone to seek occasions for the further embitterment of feeling against all foreigners.
- 3.
- My recommendation is, therefore, that the Department should insist upon literal fulfillment of obligations undertaken by the powers in respect to Special Conference and the Commission on Extraterritoriality.
Mayer
- Not printed.↩