793.003/122: Telegram

The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State

551. My 368, May 9, 5 p.m., and second paragraph of 410, May 22, 4 p.m. The following is the translation of the French reply to Dr. Wang’s note of April 2776 which however Count de Martel will not despatch as agreed upon at Nanking until all his colleagues are in a position to reply.77

“I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the note dated the 27th of last April in which you expressed the hope that the French Government would give immediate and friendly consideration to the desire of the Chinese Government to be enabled to exercise its jurisdictional authority over all residents of China.

After having taken cognizance of this communication, which was the object, on its part, of careful consideration, the French Government has charged me to remind Your Excellency that during the course of the Washington Conference it gladly gave its approval to the resolution of December 10, 1921, by the terms of which was established an International Commission charged with the study of extraterritoriality in China.

In its report of September 16, 1926, this Commission formulated recommendations the application of which would permit the powers to renounce extraterritoriality.

[Page 581]

Taking into consideration the fact[s] revealed by the said Commission, the French Government feels that, for the realization of conditions favorable to the abandonment of extraterritorial rights which its nationals enjoy by virtue of the treaty of 1858, it is indispensable that the Government of China proceed to the reformation of its laws, its judicial institutions and its method of the administration of justice [judicial administration], in conformity with the recommendations of the Commission, [recommendations] in which the Chinese delegate concurred. When [It is when] these reforms shall have been effected and shall actually have been put into practice [that] the rights of residence and of the possession of immovable property and the right to engage in commerce throughout all China, a necessary counterpart to the abandonment of extraterritoriality, may constitute for French residents a real benefit equivalent to that enjoyed by the Chinese in France.

The Government of France, animated by the sentiments of friendship which it has always manifested towards the Chinese people and of which it gave a further proof last year upon the occasion of the signing of the treaty relating to tariff autonomy,78 does not doubt but that the Chinese Government will make every effort to fulfill the conditions necessary to the examination of the problem of extraterritoriality.

It is in this spirit that, faithful to its liberal traditions, it has empowered me to assure you that it will continue to take an attentive interest in the reforms which remain to be accomplished toward the [this] end and that it will take note of all facts capable of demonstrating that these reforms have effectively entered into the administrative and judicial practice of the authorities and the population of China.

It will not fail likewise to take advantage of occasions which present themselves for effective collaboration with the Chinese authorities, striving thereby to bring about most promptly a state of affairs which would permit it to modify with the necessary guaranties the present juridical status of French residents in China.”

MacMurray
  1. Telegram in three sections.
  2. See note of May 2 from the Chinese Minister, p. 559.
  3. The note delivered to the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs was dated August 10, 1929. Bracketed corrections based on French text transmitted to the Department by the Minister in China in his despatch No. 2290, August 28; received September 27 (793.003/162).
  4. Signed December 22, 1928; League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. xcii, p. 267.