Page:Stanley Kuhl Hornbeck - The Situation in China (1927).djvu/14

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sessions. The delegates of the foreign Powers had stayed on in Peking, in spite of wars which were waged around the capital, while the Government fell, while the Provisional Chief Executive and seven of the original ten Chinese Delegates left,—they had stayed on, hoping that a new treaty might be negotiated. The adjournment came not because the Powers had not wanted and had not tried to carry out and go beyond—far beyond—the provisions of the Washington Treaty; it came because and not until after the Nationalist Government (Canton) and the People's National Army (Feng Yu-hsiang) served notice in the middle of July that they would respect no treaty, no matter what the provisions, entered into by the Peking authorities. Before the adjournment, the delegates of the foreign Powers declared unanimously that they would be glad to go on with the Conference whenever the Chinese Delegates should be in position to resume the negotiations.

The Commission on Extraterritoriality met in January, 1926, pursued its investigations, and produced in the middle of September a report signed by all of the Commissioners. The text of this report was made public in December (1926). In it the Commissioners have given an accurate account of the laws and the administration of justice in contemporary China. They have made suggestions with regard to steps which should be taken both by China and by the foreign Powers to bring about a situation in which it may be safe to abolish the

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