Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/114

 Treaty of 1844 being generally used as a guide to consular authority. But in the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858—which was not ratified until Peking had been captured in 1860 and the Son of Heaven had sought safety in flight—Article XVI lays down specifically and absolutely that British subjects guilty of crimes "shall be tried and punished according to the Laws of Great Britain"; and similar clauses being almost immediately inserted in all the treaties with the Powers, exterritoriality was fully enthroned.

That was exactly sixty years ago, and in sixty years there has been no change save to scatter exterritorialized persons by the thousand over the length and breadth of the land, often without any consular authority within a week's journey. For the right of residence in the interior, which all missionaries possess by virtue of the French Treaty of Tientsin, and the most-favoured nation clause which is found in all similar instruments, having long ago been annexed not only by countless Japanese but by many other foreigners as well, an entirely new situation exists which urgently calls for reform. Since the Revolution of 1911 and the proclamation of the Republic, China has indeed tacitly accepted this condition of affairs only because she believes that when her case is