393.1163 Property/45
The American Minister in China (Johnson) to the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs (C. T. Wang)7
Your Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s formal note of October 27, 1930,6 concerning the leasing of certain land at Jukao, Kiangsu, by the Christian Reformed Church Mission, an American missionary organization. It is noted, according to a report submitted by the Jukao District Government through the Kiangsu Provincial Government, that the Mission is said [Page 578] to have “itself wished to lease and use the land in question, and that accordingly the Provincial Government had taken action on the basis of this report”.
As Your Excellency is aware the point at issue is that the Mission desires to lease this land in perpetuity as provided for in existing treaties, and the Legation in its previous note requested Your Excellency to issue the necessary instructions to effect the authentication and transfer of these deeds on the basis of the lease of land in perpetuity. At no time has the Mission intimated to the Chinese authorities that it wished to lease land on any other basis. It is, therefore, again requested that the Jukao Magistrate be instructed to stamp the deeds of the Mission in strict conformity with existing treaty provisions.
I avail myself [etc.]
Counselor of Legation