893.00/7561
The Consul General at Canton (Jenkins) to the Minister in China (MacMurray)15
Canton, July 16,
1926.
No. 490
Sir: I have the honor to transmit a copy of an
additional note of protest, dated July 14, 1926, from Eugene Chen, the
so-called Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Cantonese regime,
respecting the resumption of the Special Tariff Conference at Peking. It
will be observed that Mr. Chen declares that the so-called Nationalist
Government is opposed to the Powers dealing with the representatives of
the Peking government, who, according to Chen, are the mere servitors of
Wu and Chang, a brace of mediaeval militarists.
I frankly do not relish these newspaper tirades from Mr. Chen, so
obviously written for publication and shall tell him so unofficially
when I see him again. (This note was published in the Canton Gazette of Thursday, July 15, 1926.)
I should be pleased to have the Legation advise me whether or not this
note should be acknowledged by the Consulate General and if so in just
what form. It would seem to me that the occasion affords an opportunity
for the Legation to express itself respecting the attitude of our
Government in relation to the Tariff Conference and the Cantonese
regime.
I have [etc.]
[Enclosure]
The Chinese Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs
at Canton (Chen) to the American
Consul General (Jenkins)
Sir: I have the honor to request you to
communicate to the American Minister at Peking the protest of my
Government against the [Page 845]
resumption of the Special Tariff Conference which was lately
suspended owing to the dispersal of the Chinese delegation. We are
definitely and reliably informed that agents of Wu Pei-fu and Chang
Tso-lin are now negotiating with the American and the other foreign
delegates for the immediate re-opening of the Conference.
My Government opposes and has opposed the Conference because it
involves “the consideration of issues which only a Central
Government, representative and competent to speak and act in the
name of the Chinese Nation, can negotiate in conference with the
official representatives of the American and other interested
Governments. Tuan Chi-jui’s administration, admittedly, was not such
a government, nor do the present servitors of Wu and Chang
constitute the type of governing body which America and the Powers
(assuming that considerations of political realism and international
morality and decency still rule high foreign policies) can meet and
treat with as a modern government.
None is so blind as to fail to see that the present phantom
government in Peking is a creation of a brace of mediaeval
militarists and a bunch of Mandarin statesboys and states-coolies
whose obvious purpose is to grab the proceeds of whatever tariff
doles and loans that America and the other Powers may be willing to
grant in order to maintain a status quo that
conflicts with every vital interest of Nationalist China.
Any payment of tariff moneys to Wu Pei-fu and Chang Tso-lin must
necessarily mean that America and the other interested
Powers—through the machinery of the unified, British-controlled
Chinese Maritime Customs—will be (a) paying
national revenues collected throughout the whole of China to two
transient usurpers of detached pieces of Chinese territory, and (b) subsidising these two militarists to
continue the prosecution of civil war against the Kuominchun and
Canton who are the two modern arms of Nationalist China, and thus
assist militarism to dominate and flourish in China. And
specifically it will mean that America and the other Powers will be
collecting the increased Customs revenues of Canton and hand over
the same to the mediaeval Wu and the ex-bandit Chang in order to
enable them the better to fight and attempt to destroy the greatest
centre of Chinese Nationalist thought and activity, which is
Canton.
I have to add that any loan or loans to be contracted by the agents
of Wu and Chang on the security of the promised surtaxes shall not
be recognized by the Nationalist Government. And I have the honour
deliberately to warn America and the other interested governments
that Chinese repudiation of any such loan or loans may conceivably
create a situation rendering it imperative for the principle of
repudiation to be extended to other loans contracted in the
interests [Page 846] of reaction and
of militarist and mandarin exploitation and plunder.
I have [etc.]
