793.003/5571/9
Memorandum by the Minister in China (Johnson)86
In the course of conversation today, Sir Miles Lampson the British Minister, stated that he was concerned somewhat over the question of the term of validity of the treaty on extraterritoriality. He said that the article on this question for which we had stipulated provided for a period of ten years. He said that he and the members of his staff agreed so far as Shanghai was concerned, that the minimum period for which they should contend should be ten years. He asked me what I thought of this. I told him that I agreed; that at one time I had thought that the term of the agreement in so far as it applied to Shanghai, might be made indefinite or at least subject to some separate understanding between ourselves and the Chinese. I recognized that such an arrangement was dangerous as it left the Chinese free to agitate for a settlement of the question as soon as the Treaty was ratified and that doubtless it would be better for us to have a definite period during which Chinese jurisdiction within the Settlement would be excluded in order that interests at Shanghai might prepare for the change.
Sir Miles stated that he had not discussed this question in the course of negotiations up to date but that the matter would have to be approached very soon and he was anxious to get his ideas fixed on the subject before it came up. He added that in the matter of reserved areas we were asking for Hankow, Tientsin, Shanghai and Canton and he had been concerned somewhat as to the order in which these places might be abandoned in case we had to accept a number less than the four asked for.
With reference to Hankow he thought there was no great difficulty although he thought that some formula might be adopted reserving jurisdiction there only so long as jurisdiction was retained by other Powers. He had reference of course to the French and Japanese Concessions.
[Page 789]With reference to Tientsin he said that the matter seemed complicated to him for in 1927 his Government had promised to return the British Concession at Tientsin and in fact had proceeded so far in this matter as to have appointed a committee to adjust the matter with the Chinese, and he thought that in any discussion of this question the Chinese would revive the negotiations regarding the British Concession at Tientsin which had now been sleeping for some time.
I stated that I did not see how the question of reservation of jurisdiction was involved in the matter of Concessions, at least in the matter of relinquishing a concession; that if the British gave up their Concession at Tientsin we would all be in a position similar to that at Shanghai, and I thought that criminal jurisdiction might well be reserved in so far as Tientsin was concerned whatever the result of the negotiations.
Sir Miles agreed with me. He then asked me if I did not think we should stick out for the reservation of Tientsin and Shanghai as the most important places of the four named in our proposals and I said I felt that these two places should certainly be reserved, that we had come to look upon Tientsin and Shanghai as being in the nature of cities of refuge to be held for foreign merchants and other foreign residents in China during different transitional periods.
- Copy transmitted to the Department by the Minister without covering despatch; received May 12. Substance reported by the Minister in his telegram of April 10, 1931, 11 a.m.; received April 11, 7:17 a.m. (793.003/597)↩