711.9312A/12

The Secretary of State to the Chinese Minister (C. C. Wu)

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of May 28, 1929, on the subject of the arbitration treaty which this Government proposed to the Government of China in a note of December 21, 1928. You inform me that your Government is prepared to accept the text as proposed by this Government with two alterations.

The first desired change consists of a definite reference to the Permanent International Commission constituted pursuant to the treaty signed between the United States and China on September 15, 1914. The second desired change consists in having the treaty signed in both the English and Chinese languages, both texts to be of equal force.

I am happy to be able to inform you that the first of the changes desired by the Government of China is fully acceptable to the Government of the United States.

This Government will, moreover, be glad to sign the treaty with texts both English and Chinese, but feels that the formula used in the treaty regulating tariff relations concluded by the Governments of the United States and China on July 25, 1928,75 should be used also in the present treaty.

The pertinent paragraph in the text as submitted by this Government on December 21, 1928, may accordingly be amended to read as follows:

“In faith whereof, the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed and do affix their seals to this treaty in duplicate in the English and Chinese languages; the English and Chinese texts have been carefully compared and verified but, in the event of there being a difference of meaning between the two, the sense as expressed in the English text shall be held to prevail.”

I trust that this will be acceptable to your Government and that you will be in a position shortly to submit to the Department the Chinese text of the treaty. When the English and Chinese texts have been carefully compared and verified, the treaty may be put into final form and we may proceed to signature.

I am gratified at the progress which has been made in this matter and I ask you to accept [etc.]

H. L. Stimson