No. 372.
Mr. Schuyler to Mr. Fish.
[Extract.]
Legation of
the United States,
St.
Petersburg, March 11, 1872.
(Received March 29.)
No. 163.]
Sir: In conversation a day or two ago, Mr.
Skimoonkhoff, the director of the Asiatic department, informed me that
you had asked Mr. Sheikoff some questions concerning the trade in
coolies by a vessel under the Russian flag, by means of a fictitious
sale to a Russian subject; that Mr. Sheikoff had been unable at the time
to answer your questions; and that he had been referred by the ministry
to the existing regulations on these subjects.
Mr. Shimoonkhoff said that a vessel which had come into the possession of
a Russian subject by a fictitious sale had no right to sail under the
Russian flag, and forfeited Russian protection. He referred me to the
Regulations of the Foreign Office. I inclose, marked A, a translation of
those sections that seem to bear on this point.
Mr. Shimoonkhoff said, further, that by a declaration some time since the
imperial government had forbidden the trade in coolies by Russian
subjects and by Russian ships, under heavy penalties. This declaration
was communicated to the Russian legation and to the Russian consuls in
China, and they were instructed to use all their efforts to put a stop
to the traffic.
* * * * * * *
I have, &c,
EUGENE SCHUYLER,
Chargé d’Affaires ad
int.
[A.—Inclosure No. 1.—Translation.]
Extract from the “Regulations of the Foreign
Office” of Russia. Division XXV.
§7. The right to raise the Russian merchant-flag, which belongs
exclusively to Russian subjects, is extended—a, to Russian joint-stock companies, the direction and
main office of which are within the limits of the empire; b, to trading firms, legally established, if
one of the principal partners, with a right of signing for the firm,
is a Russian subject; c, to persons building or buying a ship at
their common expense, if the principal partner is a Russian
subject.
§8. Permission to use the Russian flag can be given to foreign
vessels only with the special consent of the Emperor.—(Commercial
Code, Article 851.)
§59. Consuls are bound to see that a Russian subject does not become
the proprietor of a merchant-ship together with one or several
foreigners.—(Consular Regulations, Article 58.)
§31. If any one, in order to receive a patent for sailing under the
Russian flag, present false documents, or sails under a Russian flag
with a forged patent, he is liable to the punishment fixed in
Articles 294, 975, 977, 1412, and 1690 of the Penal Code.—(Penal
Code, Article 1217.)
(These punishments are exile in Siberia in different degrees.)
§32. If a Russian subject, from interested or other personal motives,
allows a fictitious purchase of a foreign ship in his name, without
having really any share in the acquisition of the ship, he is liable
for this to imprisonment for a period of from two mouths to one year
and four months; and a foreigner entering into such a bargain is
liable, on his coming to Russia, to arrest, for from four days to
three months.—(Penal Code, Article 1218.)
