Page images
PDF
EPUB

point seems to me to have been partly owing to their fear of, at the same time, binding themselves to pay an indemnity.

In this position of affairs the draught of another protocol in two articles was presented to the Yamun, on behalf of M. Otin, by the British chargé and myself, in a personal interview, and every needed explanation of its bearing given to the Chinese officials. The two articles were as follows:

1st. The Chinese commissioner to be assisted by a Spanish delegate, and the consuls of France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States acting as assessors. No evidence to be taken unless at least three of the assessors are present, who are to have the power of cross-examining the witnesses.

2d. If the Chinese case be not proven, the question of indemnity to be referred by the Yamun and the Spanish representative in China to the ministers of France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States resident in Peking; and the amount to be paid, (if any,) and to whom, to be settled by them.

A few days after the interview I received a note from the officials respecting it, and politely declining to adopt our proposal in adjustment of the disagreement between them and the Spaniards. In this note, after repeating the same assurance which they had given to M. Otin, that they harbored no suspicion of his motives, they added that there was nothing said in respect to a Spanish delegate at the conference, and concluded as follows:

Being apprehensive that our Commissioner Chan would be unable to carry out his inquiry thoroughly, and would on his arrival in Cuba be unacquainted with its people and usages, we therefore asked the five ministers here to give such directions to their nations' consuls residing there in respect to assisting our commission on its arrival as would further the satisfactory end of their visit. The appointment of an associate by the Spanish government to conduct the inquiry with the Chinese commissioner was not agreed upon at the conference, and it would be difficult now to add more at present, as you desire. The whole arrangement is as it is given in our reply to M. Otin, and was talked about with Mr. Wade at a personal interview with him, and it seems to be unnecessary to discuss it further.

To this a reply was sent, in which I maintained the understanding received at the conference, and that Prince Kung had admitted by implication that the Spanish government could appoint an assessor; for in his dispatch of the 8th ultimo, (inclosure 7,) he had affirmed as one reason for promoting Chan, that he would then rank with the Spanish officers living in Cuba. "In all western lands," I said in conclusion, "it is the usage, when one state sends a special deputy to another, for that state to designate an officer to meet and assist him in harmoniously carrying out the object of his mission. In the present instance such a course is necessary, in order that Chan and his associates may not, on their arrival, entirely fail in the end for which they were sent to Cuba." This was on the 30th instant; and at present all direct relations are Suspended between the Spanish legation and the Chinese government. The two foreign associates have reached Peking to receive their instructions from the Yamun; and though there is no doubt about the real desire of the imperial advisers to make the inquiry to which their attention has been directed, and that it will be attempted, I should be greatly disappointed if the efficient and harmonious action of their commission and the five foreign consuls in Cuba should be neutralized by their quibbling over this point. They say that if the Cuban authorities prevent their commissioners from landing and carrying on the inquiry by direct inquiry among the coolies, that no better evidence of the truth of the charges of ill-treatment could be asked for, and the propriety of prohibiting further emigration to Spanish possessions is thereby fully justified. One would desire to obtain the fullest investigation of the actual condition of these laborers, and if it confirms the charges brought

of inhuman treatment, so much the better if it is a step toward the abolition of the present system of contract labor in this empire.

The severe measures adopted by the authorities at Canton to prevent coolies of all kinds going to Macao, in order to stop as much as pos sible the delivery of those who may have been engaged by contract to go abroad, and the summary execution of all crimps and kidnappers who have been caught, have, I hear, made the business so dangerous and losing that most of the barracoons are empty. But the want of energy and perseverance in native officials constantly incites to new attempts on the part of those unscrupulous agents who are ready to fill ships going to Lima or Havana with their countrymen, even at the risk of their own lives.

A traffic like that which has disgraced Macao during so many years cannot be stopped all at once in a country like this; but when it has been made a losing business as well as a dangerous and disreputable one, neither can it be immediately revived.

I have, &c.,

S. WELLS WILLIAMS.

[Inclosure 1 in No. 9.-Translation.]

Mr. Olin to Mr. Low.

SPANISH LEGATION, Peking, May 27, 1873. SIR: The difficulties that have been raised to the Spanish legation by the imperial government in the emigration question having to be definitively settled by a collective arbitration of the foreign representatives accredited in Peking, I consider it my duty to submit to your consideration a short statement of the facts in order to enable you to form an impartial opinion upon the question which you are called to decide.

Towards the middle of the month of January last, I received a communication from the Spanish consul at Canton, in which he informed me that a Spanish emigration agent had asked, through the consulate, the authorization of the viceroy of the two Kwangs for the opening of an emigration office in Canton, in order to engage, according to the regulations of 1866, three thousand workmen which his employer required for the cultivation of his plantations; whereupon the viceroy had refused to grant the required authorization, founding his refusal on orders received from the Tsung-li Yamun by him.

As soon as these facts had arrived to my knowledge, I repaired to the Yamun, where the Ministers Mao-Chang Hri, Chunghow, and Chéng-Tin repeatedly assured me that no such order had ever been transmitted to the viceroy of the two Kwangs; but two days later, to my great astonishment, I received a communication in the shape of an official letter, in which the Yamun confirmed the prohibition to engage emigrants for the island of Cuba.

The foundations on which this decision was based were, the slanderous talk of a foreign newspaper that falsely interpreted a decision of the local government in Cuba, and represented the Chinese there as being submitted to a forced re-engagement, and the officious reports of some consuls residing in Amoy, most of them merchant consuls, who guaranteed the truth of the facts advanced in the said papers. These reports of (extra) non-official origin, and of which no one had even thought to prove the accuracy, justified, in the eyes of the imperial government, the adoption of an extreme measure, the abrogation of an international compact !

Out of the animated and often violent correspondence that took place on this subject between the Tsung-li Yamun and the Spanish legation, the only result on the part of the first was the following argument:

"The cruelty and tyranny of the Spanish government to the Chinese subjects having been duly proved by the reports of a newspaper and of the consuls at Amoy, we forbid the emigra tion to a country where our subjects have to suffer such ill treatment."

This solitary argument, adorned with all the charm of Chinese diction, and reproduced under a thousand different forms, has been the only defense opposed by the Yamun to the legitimacy of my right and to the arguments by which I enforced it.

Newspaper abuse is too common and vulgar to be taken serions notice of; as to the semi-official reports of the consuls, these functionaries being 6,000 leagues away from the scene of the events, they had no other means of knowing anything of them but from the adulterated relations in the said papers, and are, of course, not able to guar

antee their veracity. Besides, according to international law the interference of foreign and non-authorized agents is inadmissible.

The facts of the case are as follows: The accumulation in Havana of Chinese who do not possess any known means of sustenance, constitutes a permanent danger for the Spanish province of Cuba, which, besides, is at present unfortunately agitated by a rebellion now coming to an end. In view of the circumstances, the local government, exercising an indisputable right, has decided to separate the vagabonds from the industrious mass, and to give the first the alternative either of leaving the country or of re-engaging themselves; the mechanics, merchants, and all honest men have not been molested. Where, then, is the tyranny; where the cruelties?

Another fact that has been put forward by the Tsung-li Yamun in the last conference is that the workmen engaged in Cuba according to the regulation of 1866 did not receive, after the expiration of the contract, the sum stipulated for their return home, and that these wretched people were without means of returning to their country. The Tsung-li Yamun went even so far as to assure me that the information received on this subject was not to be doubted. It is sufficient to state that the first emigrants were engaged in the Chinese ports under the new regulation only, in 1869, and that the term of the contract is five years. To understand that, it is impossible that a stipulation in the contract can have been broken, which stipulation could only have effect after the expiration of the engagement, and the workmen of 1869 have not yet terminated it.

Since the emigration is going on in the Chinese ports under the new regulation, no case of abuse or violence has been signaled, no complaint has been presented on the subject, with the exception of the one that the Spanish legation brought forward last year against the Chinese delegates in Canton, who, in the absence of the Spanish consal, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of an agent of the legation, had allowed the departure of a young man who had not the authorization required for minors, mentioned in article 11 of the regulation. Well! The Tsung-li Yamun has not only left this abuse on the part of the delegates unpunished, but, turning a good deed into a crime, declares that this case constitutes an abuse, and that abuse being found in the emigration, the emigration must be forbidden. Most logical reasoning! Spanish subjects must atone for the faults of Chinese mandarius!

But let us suppose for one moment that all this is exact; that the Chinese government had, instead of bad pretexts, only good reasons to enforce its measures. When a government which is bound to another by an international compact has any remonstrances to make, or wishes to begin negotiations, it must do it by means of diplomatic agents; and it has no right to arrest the effects of the treaty, for it is under the protection of the treaty, and trusting in the good faith of the power that signed it, that foreign merchants have risked their capital in a hazardous speculation. If one of the two parties could voluntarily break off its engagements, what need would there be of treaties ?

In the present case, the Tsung-li Yamun has not only violated article 10 of the Spanish treaty, but also the clause concerning the most favored nation-refusing, as it does to Spain, a right that it accords to other foreign powers; and the result of this violent measure, which has been adopted secretly, is the ruin of the agents in Cuba, who, under the guarantee of the treaty, had begun preliminary operations of chartering vessels, distributing sums to Chinese recruiting-agents, &c.

It is true that the Tsung-li Yamun considers the regulation about emigration to be as important as international treaties, and demonstrates that the Spanish government having (according to the Yamun) infringed the regulation, the Yamun forgets, or rather wishes to forget, that above all laws is the faith sworn in international treaties; that local laws can be abrogated or modified; while a treaty is unchangeable and permanent in its legal duration; that it is a gordian knot that can be severed only by the joint will of the two sides, or by the bayonets of the strongest.

Still, as a proof of sincerity and of the little fear we have of the examination of the condition of Chinese in Cuba, I have offered to the imperial government, on my own responsi bility, a right which the treaty gives it not, that of appointing a consul in Havana, who could watch over the interest of his nationals. The Tsung-li Yamun has obstinately refused this, saying that at present it has no idea of appointing consuls in foreign countries, but when it would take place, Cuba should not be excepted, and that then the emigration could again be re-instated. Need we have a more flagrant proof of bad faith? I offer them the means of investigating the facts and of protecting their nationals, and they reject them; but if they refuse to lead the life of civilized nations, Spain cannot change the code of international law in order to serve their whims by admitting the intrusion of foreign elements into her affairs. But it is not the welfare of its expatriated subjects that the imperial government is so anxious about; this is only a pretext, and at the bottom of the question there is something very important-it is the long-prepared plan of the aerial government to break off one by one all the links by which it is bound to the civilized world; and it begins with the nations of which it is the least afraid, because

it has not yet been punished by them. To-day, it is the emigration question; to-morrow, it will be the missionaries; later, the opium.

If we resume these observations, we find that the Tsung-li Yamun, taxing itself on reports deprived of all foundation, and the origin of which is irregular, has violated the treaty existing between Spain and China; that, notwithstanding my frank and loyal explanations, it has insisted in its decision; and, further, that when, moved by a spirit of conciliation, I offered it the concession of a right which would bring truth to the light and prevent similar complications for the future, Tsung-li Yamun has rejected my offer, without even informing me of the reason of such a refusal.

This, sir, is the truthful statement of the facts. I have not time to develop it more fully; but I hope that it will prove sufficient to give you a fairly correct idea of the question that is to be submitted to your judgment, and which could, in my opinion, be set down in the following concrete formula:

Is the conduct of the imperial government in the present affair in compliance with the principles of international right?

[blocks in formation]

The Ministers of the Foreign Office to his Excellency Mr. Low:

PEKING, July 6, 1873.

On hearing, some time ago, of the cruelties inflicted on the Chinese emigrants at Havana, and in the island of Cuba, we addressed a letter to M. Pereyre, the Spanish minister, informing him that emigration to those placss could no longer be permitted. This decision was concurred in by all the treaty-consuls, and by them made known to the public.

The subject has now been again mooted by M. Otin, the Spanish chargé d'affaires, and as a difference of opinion has arisen between him and the foreign office with regard thereto, it has been suggested that the question be referred to the arbitration of the foreign ministers.

On the 15th of June, M. Otin wrote to the Minister Wausiang, stating that the two points on which it was desirable that each side should fully state their views to the arbitrators, were these:

1st. Has Spain the right, under treaty, to insist on a free emigration to Cuba? 2d. Has China the right, under treaty, to stop emigration to Cuba on the score of cruelties inflicted there on the emigrants?

To this Wausiang replied:

66

Emigration is no doubt permitted under Article X of the Spanish treaty; but_in that very article there is a distinct proviso that emigration is to be conducted under rules adapted to the requirements of each particular port, which are to be drawn up with the view of affording the fullest protection to the Chinese emigrants. And if cruelty does exist, the proviso about fullest protection is certainly violated. The present intention of the foreign office, to prohibit emigration to places notorious for the cruelties inflicted on the coolies, is not to be taken to mean that emigration to countries where Chinese coolies are not thus cruelly used will no longer be permitted."

With reference to the foregoing, the foreign office would observe that the convention, in twenty-two articles, concluded with England and France in 1866, had for its object the protection under treaty of the Chinese emigrants. It was certainly never meant to authorize the continuance of emigration under conditions which were inflicting injuries on the emigrants.

As the reply sent by Minister Wausiang to M. Otin sets forth clearly when emigration is to be allowed, and when it is to be stopped, it only remains for the foreign office to request the foreign ministers to inform them

1st. Whether it is true or not that cruelties are inflicted on Chinese coolies in Cuba? 2d. Whether, supposing it be true that Chinese coolies are cruelly used in Cuba, the foreign office ought quietly to submit to their emigrating there?

To these two questions the foreign office will feel obliged if the foreign ministers, after an impartial deliberation, will return a plain answer. If they prefer to confer personally with it on the above points, they are requested to name a time and place of meeting.

Compliments, &c., with cards of the eight ministers.

[blocks in formation]

The Ministers of the Foreign Office to Mr. Williams : Having formerly heard reports that the laborers engaged by Spaniards to go to Cuba and elsewhere had been cruelly treated there, we decided to lay the whole subject before the foreign ministers for their candid opinion; and to this end furnished them with the points discussed by M. Otin, the Spanish chargé d'affaires, and Minister Wausiang, and the reply given by the latter, requesting from each of them an answer informing us whether the Chinese laborers in Cuba were or were not cruelly treated, so that thus ground could be obtained for settling the matter.

M. Otin having again personally urged the speedy settlement of these points, it is unnecessary here to repeat the contents of the letters which passed between him and Minister Wäusiang; and the special purpose of this note is, therefore, simply to request that you would inform us whether the Chinese laborers who have been taken to Cuba are, so far as you can ascertain, cruelly treated or not.

An early answer will be anxiously looked for.
Compliments, &c., with cards of seven ministers.

[Inclosure 4 in No. 9.]

Mr. Williams to the Foreign Office.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Peking, August 1, 1873.

On the 6th ultimo Mr. Low received the note of the foreign office relating to the eruel usage which the Chinese laborers in Cuba are reported to receive from the SpanLards, and inquiring whether, if such was the fact, the Chinese government should patiently permit their subjects still to be carried away there.

Since Mr. Low left Peking I have received a second note, dated the 27th ultimo, in which the foreign office again inquires as to the truth of the reports of the bad treatment of the Chinese laborers now in Cuba, and asks for an early reply to both their notes. I have also seen the note received from the foreign office two days since, in which the ministers propose to meet all the foreign ministers at the Russian legation, and ask General Vlangaly to confer with them, (if the hour of 2 o'clock this afternoon will be convenient,) there to have a personal consultation upon the two points brought forward in connection with Spanish contracts for laborers. Owing to the heat of the season, however, I regret that I shall not be able to be present at the interview.

With regard to the inquiry as to the bad treatment of the Chinese laborers now in Cuba, it seems to me that it is necessary for a man to be on the spot, and personally learn for himself the truth by seeing and hearing what is done. I am only able to say that since the year 1849, when the business began at Canton of contracting for coolies to go to Cnba, up to this day, I have continually heard of the unjust and cruel treatment which they have there received, and that very few of those who fulfilled their term of service had ever come back to their homes. But as I have never visited those places, I cannot myself vouch for the truth of these charges. If the Chinese governDent wish to learn their real condition, the best way will be to send a special commisoner to Cuba, who shall carefully examine and ascertain for himself the mode of treating the laborers, which it will not be hard to do.

As to the question whether, if the Chinese emigrants are harshly treated in Cuba, the Chinese government will be justified in forbidding further engagement of its subests to go there as laborers, I consider that it has that right, and can forbid it. With compliments, &c.,

[Inclosure 5 in No. 9-Translation.]

S. WELLS WILLIAMS

Prince Kung to Mr. Williams.

TUNGCHI, 12th year, 8th moon, 3d day. (September 24, 1873.) Pace Kang, chief secretary of state for foreign affairs, herewith makes a communienon respecting the questions at issue with the Spanish government about Chinese Ces in Cuba.

« PreviousContinue »