OUR CONCESSIONS IN CHINA.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 March 1927, Page 1

OUR CONCESSIONS IN CHINA.

(By SIR WILLIAM WILKINSON, Formerly British Consul-General at Hankow, in the “Daily Mail”). To judge fairly the equity of maintaining extja-tcrritoriality or the principle that foreign concessions shall he governed by foreigners according to foreign law—in China, it woul'd ho necessary to go hack to the days of the East India Company’s monopoly of British trade there. At the date when this was ended, in 1833, British merchants were, by the Chinese Government, confined to a discreditable suburb of Canton (the “Factories ”), and even this they might only frequent during the tea season. The outer walls were placarded by warnings to Chinese youths of either sex to beware of* “ barbarian ” perversities. To teach Chinese to these ••barbarians” was a capital crime. British merchants could trade only with the Co-Hong, an association of Cantonese merchants under the thumb of the Viceroy and the Hippo. Foreigners were, it is true, allowed, almost contemptuously, to settle any disputes among themselves; but if, as more than once occurred, a Chinese was by pure accident killed by a foreigner. some foreigner (it mattered little which) had to he handed over for execution. When Lord Napier, a captain in the Navy and a Peer of the Realm, was sent to Canton as Superintendent of British Trade, the Viceroy insolently refused to. see him, or to accept from him any letter other than a humble petition to be handed in through the Co-Hong. Napier died shortly afterwards, anti in the time of his successor. Captain Eliot, the British merchants, alter being practically imprisoned in the “Factories,” withdrew first to Macao, then (as the Chinese brought pressure to hear on the Portuguese) to Hongbong—at that time a bare rock. War became inevitable, and resulted in the cession to .England of Hongkong and the opening to trade of Canton, Amoy, Foochow. Ningpo. and Shanghai. Further acts of had faith on the part of the Cliine.se authorities obliged us to occupy Canton city in 185!!, and to make the expeditions to North China that led to the Treaty ot 1 ientsin in 1858 and of Peking in 1890. Under these last the ports of Tientsin, Cliofoo. Newchwang. Hankow. Kmkiang. and Chinkiang wore thrown

open. , When Shanghai was first opened, m 1 - the oniV Treaty Powers were Great Britain. France and the hinted States. The French maintain that their portion was a " concession ” ; but our portion was technically merely a settlement. . The case was quite otherwise . Tientsin and Hankow. There definite, but not extensive, areas of land were leased in perpetuity to the British Crown. That the restriction of these niv .,, to foreign (non-Chinese) residence was not in the least resented by the Chinese is shown by tlie sigificant fact that when, in 1899, the little British concession at Hankow was extended landwards the Chinese authorities stipulated that Chinese should not be ibt-holders. Foreign concessions, indeed, were regarded hr Chinese officials from two points of view. In the first place they were, so to speak, so many ghettues, where the foreigner could harmlessly indulge in his fads of macadamised broad” roads and main drainage. In the second place, they afforded cities of refuge to those same officials when.

over their political opponents became aggressive. Mr Eugene Chen might hear this in mind—and no doubt will', if Wn Pei-fu wins. The vast majority of the Chinese people .and emphatically the traders') would choose the continuance of the conditions that have prevailed at Shanghai for the past 84 years rather than Cantonese dominance; and, if only in their interests, we ought firmly to refuse to give way to any demands for abolition of extra-territori-ality or the return of concessions or settlements until Mr Chen and his fellows can show—as the Japanees showed, and the Siamese—that they are willing and able to administer impartial justice in the native courts.