Mr. MacVeagh to Mr. Fish.
Sir: The different consulates within my jurisdiction, as you are aware, desire my opinion and assistance from time to time in matters concerning the officers attached to the consulates or the American citizens under their protection. As a general rule the difficulties are easy of solution, but it occurred to rue that you might desire to know the general principles by which I am guided in the instructions I give, as well as my answer to a recent application for instructions by the consul general at Beirut.
In the litigations and other troubles of the numerous dragomans and cavasses attached to our consular offices, I have always insisted that it was very undesirable for the legation to bring them to the attention of the Porte, or to endeavor to secure their removal from the ordinary methods of judicial procedure, unless they arise from or were in some manner related to the official conduct of the dragoman or cavass in question. Many of these officers are such in name only; they receive no salary; they seldom discharge any duties, because there is rarely occasion for their services; and they are almost universally engaged in other business.
The value of their protection from the consular officer depends upon their withdrawal from responsibility to the tribunals of their own country. As these tribunals are often very inefficient and often believed to be corrupt, and as the relations of the consular officer are frequently very intimate with his six or eight attachés, it is quite natural that the [Page 891] importance of their protection in all their litigations should appear to the consular officer in quite an exaggerated form, while it is equally natural that he should not see the ill effect such continual intermeddling by the legation in such small matters between the Porte and its own subjects is sure to exert upon the character of the legation itself.
Moreover such intermeddling encourages a litigious disposition on the part of the persons protected. In the last ninety days three matters of litigation have been brought to the notice of the Porte affecting a single dragoman of the very subordinate vice-consulate at Aleppo, not one of them, so far as I can remember, having the slightest connection with his office. Then, too, I have not been able to agree that the disposition of other governments to withdraw as many Turkish subjects as possible from the jurisdiction of their own tribunals furnished any rule for our guidance; nor have I assented to the idea, which seems to be prevalent, especially in Asiatic Turkey, that a large following of unpaid attachés is at all necessary to inspire the local authorities with proper respect for the Government of the United States.
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The question presented to me by the consul general at Beirut, and to which I have alluded, was of a wholly different character. He desired to know whether the right of interference in his official capacity existed in behalf of native teachers in American mission schools. My answer, after pointing out that the praiseworthy and even Christian character of the work to be advanced could make no difference in its treatment, informed the consul general that I supposed the proper rule for his guidance was, that, if the native teachers were troubled because of their services to American citizens, he ought to interfere; if not, he ought not to interfere.
Inasmuch as our citizens had an undoubted right to preach and teach, and as the presence and assistance of natives were indispensable to the enjoyment of these rights, any attempt to persecute or harass in any way natives for rendering lawful services to American citizens, was an infraction of the rights of such American citizens, and was to be resisted, as such, and in the names of such American citizens. In other words, I informed him that in my judgment the true criterion was, not whether an Ottoman subject was being harshly or unjustly treated, but whether, directly or indirectly, the rights of an officer or a citizen of the United States were likely to be infringed.
The practical application of the rules I have mentioned will always be more or less difficult under Ottoman administration, and I have endeavored in all cases to recommend them with proper courtesy and with the distrust due to my limited experience; but I am satisfied, if properly observed, they will afford an almost perfect guarantee of our ability to settle all the questions arising here satisfactorily, without recourse to the Department.
There are several considerable settlements of Americans in this empire, to which I may make a brief visit with a view of rendering their relations to the legation more intimate; and in that case I will take care to consider the subject of this dispatch with the principal consuls whom I would thus meet. * * * * * *
Yours, &c.,