continued: "In a similar manner, in the face of difficulties, we have made progress in connection with extra-territoriality.
"We are ready to apply the existing modern Chinese civil and commercial code in the Britisn courts, but as the Chineve codes are in no way complete, it is hardly possible to make a further advance is direction and to surrender half-complete and is from the division of The Surrendered Concessions A third branch of the programme laid down by His Majesty's Government was the surrender of our special rights in the British concessions. He wished he could give more satisfactory account of the Proposi state of affairs in Hankow and Kiukiang since the surrender to those. concessions. The chaos of civil-war. had immensely impeded the Ohinese in efficiently discharging the obliga. tions devolving on them from the moment we surrendered any of those privileges. He could only watch the development of affairs and proceed on that path as circumstances might render, further progress possible, Sir Austen Chamberlain continued "The Shanghai Defence Force has already been reduced to 4,500 of all ranks, and orders have been given for the withdrawal of another battalion. I shall be very happy when conditions of order and security enable the total withdrawal of the force, but that time has no:
The Foreign Secretary regretted the failure of any Chinese authority, up to the present, to give satisfaction for the outrages committed at Nanking, remarking" Even the present moment Chinese troops. have wrongfully and unlawfully occupied the British Consulate that city.
Continuing, Sir Austen said that the situation in China, however, was undoubtedly better' than last year. The anti-British character of the agitation had changed and the Chinese were beginning to acquire better appreciation of the good-witl of the British Government and the British peopl The Naval Conference Sir Austen Chamberlain defence! the Government against the charges made by the Opposition sith rezari to she Tripartite Naval Conference held at Geneva last autumn. He did not doubt that the United States. bitterly regretted the failure of the honest efforts made by all. three patties to the Convention to advance the work begun at Washington. He expressed the opinion that the Government would be well-advises not to take up the subject again at present but he hoped that the participants in the Conference, and also other interested might learn from that when the time came to review the Washington Convention and, a8 Lo hoped, to make a new one, they might profit from the lessons. the past and succeed where last year they had failed.
The Secretary for Foreign Affairs emphasized that war with the United States was unthinkable and the prospect of such a thing or Preparation for it had never been Programmes are framed jew to necessary protection of British interests. The action of His Majesty's Government modifying our cruiser programme shows that the failure of the Geneva Conference has not lessened our desire to modify naval construction."
Sir Austen Chamberlain informed the House that, in the meantime, there were other negotiations between Great Britain and the United States pending, namely: the Treaty of Arbitration which. America had submitted to Britain. which was identical with that submitted by Washington to the French Government. He added that the new Treaty of Arbitration signed by France and the United States on the Gth was not the same as the original draft, and he had not yet been apprised of its exact contents. The new treaty, however, like the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.