711.933/148: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
865. My telegram No. 811, September 10, 7 p.m.
- 1.
- At the instance of the interested chiefs of missions, the Senior
Minister has drawn up for submission to their respective
Governments, as a suggested basis for their individual notes, the
following tentative draft of a reply to the Chinese note of
September 5th with regard to extraterritoriality:
“On August 10th last I had the honor to acquaint Your Excellency with the views of my Government on the question of abolition of [Page 608] extraterritoriality raised by Your Excellency in your note of April 27th.
I now have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s note of September 9th, [in which] it is requested that immediate discussions be opened with the Chinese Government for making the necessary arrangements whereby extraterritoriality in China will [may] be [abolished] to the mutual satisfaction of both Governments.
Your Excellency will remember that in my above-mentioned note of August 10th I transmitted at considerable length the opinion which my Government had formed on the subject after having given it its most serious and careful consideration.
It is therefore unnecessary to enter here again into the details connected with this complicated matter, although it seems to my Government not superfluous to draw the attention of the Chinese Government to the fact that certain events of the past few months cannot but strengthen the opinion that the legal and physical safeguarding of property and of life in China still leaves very much to be desired in spite of the altered circumstances on which Your Excellency lays so much stress in your note under reply.
However, my Government, as I did not fail to point out in my previous note, is prepared to give sympathetic consideration to the desires expressed by the Chinese Government in connection with extraterritoriality and if Your Excellency is in a position to submit any concrete proposals which take into consideration the main points of the said note, I will be pleased to transmit these to my Government.”
- 2.
- The interested Ministers decided that in submitting this tentative draft to their Governments for consideration they should renew the suggestion that the respective Ministers for Foreign Affairs personally impress upon the Chinese Ministers at the various capitals the seriousness with which the Governments would regard a repudiation or impairment by China of their extraterritorial rights.
- Telegram in three sections.↩