793.003/130: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
574. Referring to my telegram No. 410, May 22, 4 p.m., and my No. 551, July 9, 9 p.m. [a.m.]
- 1.
- The following is the substantive portion of the Netherlands
Minister’s draft reply91 to the note of the Minister for Foreign
Affairs on extraterritoriality dated April 27th.92
“Her Majesty’s Government has given this request its most careful consideration, and now instructs me to inform Your Excellency that, in the same way as it was happy to join the other powers in bringing about the resolution adopted on the 10th December, 1921 by the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament, which placed on record its systematic [sympathetic] disposition towards China’s aspiration, it will be pleased to cooperate with these powers and with China for the realization and fulfillment of China’s desire with regard to the question of jurisdiction.
[Page 591]It may here be recalled that with this end in view her Majesty’s Government wholeheartedly participated in the work of the International Commission which was instituted as a result of the abovementioned resolution and which drew up a number of valuable recommendations for the benefit of the Chinese Government.
It cannot be gainsaid that there exists a close relationship between the internal situation of China and the guarantees which the laws and their administration in the whole of China offered to foreign rights and interests on the one hand and the measure of progress which it will be possible to make on the road to abolition of the special arrangement[s] now in force with regard to foreigners on the other. The possibility for Netherlands subjects to enjoy liberty of trade, of residence and of the exercise of civil rights, including that of owning property throughout the whole of China, is in the same way closely connected with the degree of security existing in the interior of the country and with the safeguards which the Chinese judicial institutions offer with a view to their independence and their immunity from interference by military and political authorities.
In conclusion I am desired by Her Majesty’s Government to assure Your Excellency that its sympathetic attitude towards China with regard to the above questions remains unchanged and that therefore when the introduction and the effective acceptance by the country of modern institutions guaranteeing the administration of just laws by an independent and unassailable judiciary will have rendered useful reforms possible in the matter of jurisdiction over Netherlands nationals, it will be found ready to act in unison with the governments of the powers who were represented at the Conference of Washington with the object of examining the possibility of meeting the aspiration to which the Chinese delegation at the said Conference gave expression and which is reiterated in Your Excellency’s note under reply.”
- 3.
- The British, French and Netherlands Legations are still holding their replies in the hope of its proving possible to dispatch [them] simultaneously with ours.