July 20.
More exciting events have rather distracted attention from the important correspondence between the Dean of the Diplomatic Body and Dr. C. 'T. Wang, on the future of the Provisional Court. On May 8 Dr. Wang wrote to Mr. Oudendijk asking that discussion of this question might be taken up, as the Rendition Agreement expires at the end of this year, On June 7 Mr. Oudendijk replied, saying that Dr. Wang's note had been carefully considered by all the representatives of the Treaty Powers, although the Chinese Foreign Minister had excluded those where recently made tree with China look to an ion of extraterritoriality; and that the Ministers were agreed that the speediest and most satisfactory way of reaching a decision would be to entrust the matter to a commission composed of representatives of the Shanghai Consular Body and of the Chinese Government, who would report their conclusions to the Diplomatic Body and Nanking. In this connection Mr. Oudendijk recalls that the Rendition Agreement.was the product of the Consular Body and of the Kiangsu Provincial Government. He adds that his colleagues wish to state that they cannot disguise from themselves the fact that certain unsatisfactory features in the functioning of the Court under the said agreement of 1926 have been due to external political and administrative interference with its operation and that they regard it as essential that these external influences should be excluded in future, The letter ends with a "sincere hope that by dealing with the matter in this practical way," a final settlement may be reached by which "peace may be safeguarded and justice administercordance with existing rights"—a phrase that needs no elaboration—"and international good-will Wang's reply to Mr. Oudendijk's proposal is an uncompromising refusal, The question of the Provisional Court, he says, "is not of a local character and ought not to be left to local representatives to examine and discuss;" the procedure Mr, Oudendijk suggests he regards as "only tending to complicate the matter without helping its practical solution," and he therefore regrets that he cannot agree to it, The obvious rejoinder is that Dr. Wang is not anxious to admit to the discussions those who by first-hand experience know most about the working of the Provisional Court, But his letter goes much deeper than that, as shown by the apparently extraordinary assel n that the question is "not of a local characte The only sense in which the Provisional Court could be considered as not of a local character, and local character alone, is in its rela~ tion to the whole question of extraterritoriality. We have been told plainly more than once what the Chinese intentions are regards the Provisional urf, namely, to make it a purely Chinese Court of the lowest grade, hardly capable of dealing—summay with anything but the most trivial cases. If this can be secured, the rights of the Municipal Council allude ed to by Mr, Oudendijk are irre-parahly injured and an important step has been gained towards the abolition of ext ritoriality, But if a Court is established "in accordance with existing rights" and with due regard for the Council's lawful position as the supreme governing body of Shanghai, the total extinction of extraterritoriality is indefinitely postponed, The Chinese policy as regards the Provisional Court is designed to eliminate what is undoubtedly the most difficult point of all in connection w extraterritoriality, namely, the future status and government of Shanghai, In this connection we cannot: ignore the assertions said to have been made by Government spokesmen—Dr. Wang is one and Mr, Sun Fo another though we should not give too much weight to such rumours of men in their position—that China will declare extraterritoriality abolished at the end of this yenr whether the Powers like it or not. This rumour has reached Japan, where it has made a considerable impression on the pres The position, as it probably appears to all Treaty Powers, is admirably described in the article by Baron Shidehara, the Foreign Minister, of which we received a translation from our Tokyo correspondent yesterday. This article has additional importance from the fact that Baron Shidehara is traditionally friendly to Chin: He reminds China that the Japanese, when bound in the same rotating and objectionable fetters" which the Chine: naturally resent, "instead raising a hue and cry against foreign nations," put themselves metaphorically to school, "and when we were able to show Powers that the needed reforms had been effectively complete: they gladly signed treaties with us on an equal footing." Baron Shidehara examines the Chinese contention that the "unequal" treaties are the barrier to all their progress and that "once these are removed, a miraci¢ would be automatically wrought and the millennium would have dawned for China." But he can find no ground for this belief either in the facts of China's case or in Japan's own experience.
Unequal treaties (says Baron Shidehara) are the result, not, the cause, of defective domestic ministration, and it is somethin unnatural, even dangerous, to a tempt to put an end to the existing regime, without removing the causes which gave rise to it. If China sets her house in order, completes proper arrangements for the ade=
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.