Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1942 PRIVILEGES IN CHINA GIVEN UP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 17 October 1942, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1942 PRIVILEGES IN CHINA GIVEN UP

THE decision of the British and. American Governments to renounce j their right to extraterritoriality in China was appropriately timed for| China’s national day. The news was! received with jubilation in Chung-j king, where the special privileges j granted to foreign traders and of- 1 ficiais have been regarded as a humiliation to a proud people. It is j almost a hundred years since the! Treaty of Nanking, coming at the' conclusion of the First Opium War (1839-42), gave Britain her first foot-j hold in China. The island of Hong i Kong was ceded to our Government,; and live Chinese ports, the chief of; j which were Canton and Shanghai, ; were opened to British trade. It vvasj | a form of Imperial expansion which ; now gives us no great cause for j | pride, and, in the years that followed, i the original concessions were considI erably extended. In the latter part' 1 of the nineteenth century France,; I Germany, Russia, the United States, and Japan, encouraged by Britain’s j success, entered the field, with re- j suits eminently satisfactory to themselves; and by 1900 almost the whole of China’s overseas trade was in the; hands of foreigners. The usual practice was to grant to: these outsiders an area of territory which was in theory a part of their own country. Living in this concession, they were subject only to the laws of their own country, as administered by their consuls, and were exempt from taxes, customs duties. | and in many cases local rates. Except in rare cases they were immune from arrest for breaches of the criminal or civil law of the country . in which they were domiciled. The ; concessions had usually their own i armed garrison and sometimes their

j own post offices and stamps. It must j he admitted that the demand for i these privileges was justified on the j ground that the Chinese Imperial j Government was usually quite imf potent to protect the nationals of other countries, and further, die law j administered by the local consuls. I especially in British and American ports, was generally fair and equili able. But a real abuse began to creep jin when Chinese nationals crowned i ' into the reserved areas in large num-j j bers and became subject to the la ws jof the concession. The Foreign ('< r.-] cession in Shanghai, for instance, ultimately attained a population ol' over three millions, of whom all out; ia handful were Chinese by birth, j So long as China slept, life in the ; concessions was free and untroubled; ; but. when the giant began to stir uni easily the position changed. As fallback as 1902 the Chinese Government tried to get these vexatious I trading rights removed; but it was j not till 1926 that Britain set up a I commission to report on the jues-J lion. It advised that the privilege j .of extraterritoriality should be '4'radu{ally relinquished; and it is probable that this recommendation would soon i have been put into effect had not ; China been suddenly thrown .ntu i turmoil by the war with Japan m | 1931. For some years the matter was ! shelved; but the emergence of the i United Nations with China as one of ' the principal partners again brought j i it to the front. The promise now made j by the Democracies is subject to two i reservations. First, Hong Kong, : which is regarded as a colony rather ; than a concession, is not to be restored |to the Chinese. Secondly, the extra- | territorial privileges of diplomatic representatives will not be affected. This of course is merely in accordance with the usage of civilised nations throughout the world, and there is a ' 1 vast difference between demanding extraterritoriality for ambassadors, j who directly represent a sovereign ruler, and requesting it for traders who have settled in a foreign counj try for personal gain. Cynics may say that there is no great merit in relinquishing privi- . leges which no longer have any real , value, since all the’ treaty ports are jin Japanese hands. This however is I an ungenerous view, for the sacrifice will hold good when the integrity of China is restored. We may ; fairly regard the recent offer as a genuine expression of goodwill on the , part of the great Anglo-Saxon democracies. It means that the Chinese 1 are accepted as allies and equals in the fullest sense of these terms. It is | essential to our cause that Marshal j Chiang Kai-shek should be able to keep his army in the field against Japan and that harmony should , prevail among the United Nations; , and so far as the recent action of i Britain and America helps to bring this about, it may be regarded a.; a small sacrifice to attain a great end.