393.1123 Lincheng/171a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (Schurman)
126. Your No. 236, June 23, 1 p.m. With reference to what are termed progressive sanctions, although the Department agrees with the view of the Committee that these should not consist of a pecuniary indemnity, it disapproves of the proposed demands with respect to Shanghai for the reasons outlined in its No. 118 of June 21, 6 p.m. [Page 670] It apprehends that these demands would appear to that element in China which is most substantial and most friendly to foreigners, as in fact they appear to the Department, to be prompted rather by hopes of advantage to certain groups of foreign interests than by a regard for the necessity of penalizing the Chinese Government for permitting the outrage to occur or for negligence in freeing the captives thereafter. It is believed that such demands, not affecting the provincial militarists but forcing debatable issues with the Chinese commercial community of Shanghai, would serve to alienate the sympathy of that class from which must proceed the demand for stability and good order in China.
It has been the policy of the Department that the question of Settlement extension should not be confused with other issues. In its instruction No. 330, of February 10,3 the Department advised you of its opinion that the subject of the reorganization of the Mixed Court should remain in abeyance pending the meeting of the Commission on Extraterritoriality; and as you were advised in its telegram No. 14 of January 22, 5 p.m.,3 the proposals relating to the improvement of Shanghai harbor are not as yet in such form as to meet with the full approval of the Department, inasmuch as they appear in important matters to depart from the recommendations of the Committee of Consulting Engineers, for the purpose of promoting certain local non-American vested interests. Considered merely from the viewpoint of the several national interests concerned, it would appear that, whereas American nationals were the most numerous among the sufferers from the Lincheng outrage, the demands based thereon would accrue primarily to the benefit of particular interests of other nationalities.
With regard to the suggestion that the self-respect of the Diplomatic Body demands the carrying out of the policy of progressive sanctions announced by it, the Department believes that this situation would be fully met by such suggestions as were contained in the Department’s telegram No. 121, June 23, 3 p.m., with respect to the establishment of railway police and the possible stationing of troops at Tsinan, or by some other course of action related to the original incident, free from the imputation of ulterior motives, and clearly designed as a penalty upon the Chinese Government and a warning to the officials both of Shantung and of other provinces.
Your 238, June 25, 7 p.m., just received, is having careful consideration.