893.102S/2285: Telegram
The Consul at Shanghai (Butrick) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:32 p.m.]
971. Chinese Courts. Reference penultimate sentence of my 934, September 17, 5. p.m.50 It is reported that Chungking authorities [Page 817] have restored full salaries of judges and Court employees which had been reduced soon after outbreak of war and have granted them a further increase of 40%. This action is stated to have been made retroactive to January 1, 1940. Most of the judges and employees continue to live in the Court premises. No terrorist attacks against any of them have been reported.
In a recent private conversation with the Municipal Advocate of the Shanghai Municipal Council, the German Consul General stated his interest in maintenance of the status quo of the courts, indicating a fear that because of the difficulty in securing adequate personnel the courts would not function efficiently under Wang Ching-wei control. He also stated his belief that the Japanese hold the same view.
It is possible that this is true and that the Japanese consider the court question not one of pressing urgency since the Municipal Advocate recently informed me confidentially that very few arrested terrorist suspects of either Chungking or Wang Ching-wei factions are now being tried in the courts but are being turned over by the Shanghai Municipal Police to the Japanese authorities. Such action would appear to be possible under the increasingly loose interpretation being given by the Shanghai Municipal Police to the March 1939 agreement for cooperation in suppression of anti-Japanese activities in the International Settlement (see Shanghai’s despatches 203351 and 204552 of March 6 and 10, 1939).
Sent to the Department. Repeated to Chungking, Peiping. Code text by airmail Tokyo.
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1939, vol. iv, p. 16.↩