793.003/374
Memorandum by the Minister in China (Johnson)23
I spent the morning with Sir Miles Lampson and Mr. Eric Teichman, Chinese Secretary of the British Legation. I had previously prepared a document showing in parallel columns the draft on extraterritoriality containing the British amendments and the revision of the Lampson-Johnson draft prepared by the Department of State. We agreed that, in view of the fact that the Department’s revised draft reserved to the countries concerned jurisdiction in criminal cases and, in view of the fact that it would be wise to retain this jurisdiction, at the same time asking for co-judges for purposes of possible trading later, we would take the Department’s draft as the draft upon which we would work and consider it the first line of attack in any negotiations on extraterritoriality, reserving the British draft with the Foreign Office amendments, and certain additions to be taken from the Department of State draft, as our second, or Hindenburg line. We [Page 437] then proceeded to read the Department’s draft through and, having noted down certain comments which are to be drawn up in memorandum form by Mr. Teichman, we approved of this draft and proposed to recommend it to our respective Governments for acceptance by them as a basis for negotiation.
Sir Miles told me that he had not discussed extraterritoriality with C. T. Wang during his present visit, although he had had conversations on the subject with Hu Han-min and Wang Chung-hui. Such conversations, however, had been directed to the general subject rather than to any specific terms to which the two countries might agree. He stated that he had told them here quite frankly that the whole matter was being considered by his Government, that his Government would doubtless desire to discuss the matter with other interested Powers, that he himself did not expect to come back to Nanking until September when he would doubtless be prepared to stop here for the whole month of September for the purpose of negotiating on this question and possibly settling it. He said that no one at the present time in the Government seemed inclined to press the question of extraterritoriality. He said that they seemed to be quite aware of the fact that it was something that would have to move slowly.
- Copy transmitted to the Department without covering despatch; received June 19, 1930.↩