793.94/13416: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Lockhart) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 9—1:15 p.m.]
972. Consulate’s 2, January 2, 10 a.m.95a and 5, January 3, 3 p.m.,95b and my 960, July 7, 3 p.m.96 The Shanghai Municipal Council proposes, among the measures to be adopted to suppress bombing outrages, to issue a new proclamation one paragraph of which will read as follows:
“Any person found in the International Settlement in possession of arms or explosives, without a permit from the Settlement authorIties, [Page 217] or engaged or connected with terrorist activities, will be liable to be expelled from the Settlement, provided always that where such possession or such activities are found to be in no way, directly or indirectly, against the armed forces outside the Settlement, normal procedure through the courts will be followed.”
The above quoted paragraph is to take the place of paragraph 1 of the proclamation issued January 1, 1938 referred to in No. 2, January 2, 10 a.m. reading as follows
“That any persons committing an offense against armed forces in the International Settlement will be liable to the handed over to the armed forces concerned.”
My concurrence has been requested by the Shanghai Municipal Council but I hesitate to acquiesce in the regulation even as regards non-Americans unless instructed to do so by the Department. In the meantime I have informed the Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council that I am unable to accept the proclamation as applying to American nationals or American property in derogation of American extra-territorial rights or jurisdiction.
Repeated by mail to Peiping and Tokyo.
- Ante, p. 2.↩
- Vol. iv, p. 215.↩
- Not printed.↩