The identic Notes of the Powers concerned were handed to
the Peking Foreign Office on Friday, September 4th. They insist on the Chinese Government realizing its responsibility for the protection of foreign rights as safeguarded by the existing treaties, but express the willingness of each Power to modify the treaties. We must urge again that if there is to be a Judicial Inquiry into the Shanghai shooting, no time should be lost in arranging it. Equally, we trust that, apart from the new Notes, arrangements are really being pressed forward to pick up the loose threads hanging from the Washington Conference,and to hold the long delayed Tariff Conference. This should be the first step and should develop into something more, almost into a second Washington Conference, to be held at Peking or, as Sir John Jordan would prefer, at Shanghai. The difficulty of negotiating with China in her present state of misgovernment by rival soldieries is tremendous. Possibly by demanding a real representative authority we, the foreign nations concerned, shall create one and gradually solve the difficulty.
