FOREIGN COURTS IN CHINA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3464, 7 April 1930, Page 7

FOREIGN COURTS IN CHINA.

The reason why extraterritoriality, no matter how harshly the world may tall on ears unaccustomed to its sound, is precious to aliens in China is very simple, says a coirrespoiident ol the New York Herald-Tribune. Being under the same jurisdiction as they enjoy in their own countries, men ol European and American stock have built up on the Chinese coast-nm in less than 'JO years an amazing structure which is largely responsible loir the illusion throughout the world that the country has been re tunned.

Were it not lor the artificial protection which they enjoy, won at the cannon’s mouth, life tor the white men would still be as in the Canton factory days, when they were confined in narrow spaces ana considered creatures apart. Having issued out of this isolation by virtue of their military force, commercial energy and organising power, they have wrought all the solid part ol the great changes which have come.

To be like (iiese Westerners, to have control of all the good tilings they have huilt up, that is the reason for Young China’s tireless efforts at dispossession, which are no longer even thinly disguised.

The evolution ol extraterritoriality was a long, slow process which took scores oi years. The necessity to gam immunity from cruel punishments and illegal taxation played just as great a part as the desire to open up the country. The first treaties made by England did no more than say that British cruisers would he stationed at every port to insure law and order among Jlritisii seamen; it was American lawyers who lir.st defined consular jurisdiction when they laid down in the first American treaty that “all questions in regard to rignts, whether of property or person, arising between the citizens of the United States in China shall be subject to the jurisdiction of their own government." There was a particular reason for Ibis. Dr Jl. B. Morse, historian, ol China’s international relations, gives tiie lust Chinese trial of an American in this way: “An American sailor dropped or threw an earthen jar, which was declared to have struck the head of a woman in a boat and caused her to Jail overboard. His surrender was oemanded and was refused, whereupon the American trade was stopped. Then it wasi agreed that lie should be tried on board. The trial was conducted oy the local magistrate, who heard the evidence for the prosecution, refused to allow that evidence to ue interrupted, reinsert to allow testimony or argument lor the defence and adjudged the accused guilty. After this mockery of a triai ami farce of a judicial decision, ne was pub in irons by the ship’s officers, hut not yet surrendereu. ”1 lie trade was still stopped and American merchants and shipping annoyed. and, alter another week, he was surrendered to lake a second trial in Ihe city. No one but Chinese was present at this trial, and he was again adjudged guilty and executed by strangulation within twenty-iour hours, Jus body being then returned and American trade re-opened ’’ That is the nearest you can come to showing, in a few words, why extraterritoriality exists. It should not he supposed that such things arc impossihle to-day. Only four months ago a .British police officer in Shanghai watched an execution by strangulation. In ibis case it was a Chinese, but cancel extra territoriality and the next victim may be a white man, Jt cannot lie too often insisted that China, outside the treaty ports, still belongs to the time of Chaucer; the standards of living and the habits of peasant and trader alike are the standards of living and habits of the fourteenth century. At any moment any city in China may ho invaded by a great semi-bandit mob that will act precisely as Wat Tyler's men acted in London.

What keeps up a semblance of law and order in certain zones is the foreigner 'and Ids military garrisons, for instance, at Shanghai, Tientsin. Peking. Dairen and .Mukden, coupled with the fear of retribution. Only half way through a generation of welter and strife, such as succeeds the fall of every dynasty, the most China can hope for is a peace of exhaustion. The agitation against extraterritoriality mainly springs from the misunderstandings of the Washington Conference in 1922. In the interval since that conference. China, having drawn up a’ large number of codes, reformed some of her courts and built a certain number of mode] prisons, has made herself believe that she has fulfilled the conditions then laid down, and that all that remains is action. Confronting a world that is vaguely anxious about peace and international justice, she is convinced that success in the matter is merely a question of lung power. Fortunately, there is too much at stake; money speaks louder than legal arguments. It is estimated that the capital value of the foreign investment in China at the close of 1929 is £"1.000,000 spread out in land, buildings, shipping. docks, railways, hanks, mines, oil installations and other activities. England has £400.000.000 of this; Japan £'2do.ooo. France and the Cnited States £100.000.000 each, llelginm. Holland and the Scandinavian countries dividing the rest. I!v far the greatest amount, £700,000 is in Shanghai, where the land values are important enough to cause a war. Cancel or imperil vast investment and the world’s trade not only immediately will suffer a great shock, hut the whole machinery of exchange throughout Eastern Asia will be thrown into disorder, and the lot of the cultivator from Canton to llarhin become more unbearable than it is toil a;, . Whv. then, should the Nanking clique have been so insistent;" Publicly it has been made a question of pride. If Turkey has succeeded in winning the abolition of the capitulations, why should ( Inna be held less competent f That, however, is only part of the truth and the lesser pari. In reality abolition is attractive because it would vastly strengthen, for a short time tit least, whoever happens to bold the reins of government. The I ■ ix;u i Shanghai. lor tnslanee. on ;i war-bud I-is alone would viold more (ban any two provinces, and if every foreign person and every f. in •cj.ii s ] earner. I nun oim end <4 the immense loa - j i o (be o I her, eon b I lie I.■ 11 w tier.' I lie lax i otti e(nr could do a la |. lea-eil llf |., eI. in, Mould Ire rieli ■|l|. o! and "aim . I lie I llom.i n C|t I/,, ll of I lie dl "I llel .lie pel 10(1 I‘o) - ,i"nr i ii iI i hen mnid ’ ir\ < !imese I. alei ;ial■ ia a I \\ lilt Ila aim' idea. < >b- \ i,<i| !\ It i - mil aII ea - \ assault to 111 ee( ( 'll 11l a in ooe-q lia ll er ol lln ' m orld' pepid.il ion and an area of I - HI ,l i ne, -ipi.ir, miles, ami Ibe trade ol |h,. Par!la hugely depends on what ( all, 1 1 1.11 >■ on her shores . rile problem i in find seme bridge between a fourt•• •. 11 11 • ~i, nun,' population and a twejjt a tli 'I mnr v eon I act a drop "I 'ipd \ ar whe b i- a more nhtb maiti r than state men have imagined

Talk, of ‘ shortening the line,’’ i.e., of limiting extraterritoriality to certain areas, is wrong. The line has already been so shortened that there is no rope left. h'ive years ago the railways of China had magnificent prospects; today, because foreign supervision has disappeared, they are dying. Two years ago virtual tariff automony was conceded. Chiang Kai-shek has utilised the vastly increased customs revenues, not to reform the administration or to make good defaulted foreign obligations, but to borrow for undisclosed purposes about £40,000.000, which has now disappeared into the void.

No matter what other nations may do, Japan certainly will not be guided by sentimental views. She cannot afford it. Japan will protect her investments and her people to the last ditch. Nanking may declare her treaty expired and make regulations to meet the ease; Japan merely shrugs her shoulders and maintains a stony silence.

She will see to it that no shallow arguments or paper decrees bring damage to her investments. She has magic behind her—the magic of her bugles. When her bugles sound China just disappears. and what is left is that very different matter, the problem of the Far East.