893.05/93: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 12—1:10 p.m.]
212. 1. The Legation on March 11 by circular telegram instructed all China consuls in the sense proposed in the Legation’s 159, February 19, 6 p.m., and authorized in the Department’s telegram 70, February 23, 2 p.m. Consuls were instructed to inform respective Commissioners for Foreign Affairs.
2. I also despatched the following note to all of my colleagues whose Governments were signatories of or adhered to the extraterritoriality resolution.
[Page 469]“Under instructions from my Government I have the honor to inform you that, with a view to carrying out the provisions of the first sentence of section 2 of article 4 of the recommendations contained in the report of the Commission on Extraterritoriality in China, my Government does not, pending readjustment of treaty relations with China, purpose (except in unusual circumstances) to exercise the rights granted by article 4 of the Sino-American commercial treaty 1880 insofar as relates to an American official watching proceedings, et cetera, in cases brought by American plaintiffs against Chinese defendants. This decision does not include cases brought in Shanghai provisional court where a special agreement has been made for a limited period or cases brought in the International Mixed Court at Kulangsu (Amoy).”
3. Simultaneously with the despatch of the circular telegram above referred to, the following was received from the American consul general at Hankow:
“March 10, 3 p.m. My March 8, 3 p.m. Eugene Ch’en told me this morning that the Nationalist Government has appointed a committee to investigate and evolve a plan for the establishment in the near future, perhaps within a month, of a modern Chinese court to try cases in which foreigners are plaintiffs against Chinese. The investigation is now in progress.”