No. 53.
Mr. Fish to Mr. Low.
Washington, January 4, 1873.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatches Nos. 165, 166, and 173, dated, respectively, June 20, June 24, and August 7, 1872. As these dispatches all relate to two questions of interest—the binding of Chinese children by contracts of indenture, made between the parents or guardians of those children and American citizens resident in that empire, and the iniquitous practice of kidnapping ignorant and unsuspecting Chinese subjects for the purpose of consigning them to involuntary servitude in foreign countries, in relation to which your official action has recently been invoked—the present is deemed a fitting occasion in which to inform you of the views of the Department on those questions, and also to express to you its approval of your official conduct in relation to them.
No case can be readily imagined which would more forcibly illustrate the cruel and heinous character of the crime of kidnapping than the one of which you give an account in your dispatch of August 7 as having occurred at Tien-Tsin on the 23d of July previous. The seizing of an innocent child and tearing it almost literally from its mother’s arms is an act at once shocking to the common sentiment of justice and repulsive to every feeling of humanity.
The conduct of Mr. Meadows, the vice-consul at Tien-Tsin, as shown in his earnest efforts for the recovery of the child and his prompt and energetic action in bringing the perpetrators of the outrage to justice, is alike honorable to his character as a man and as an officer of the United States. His action meets with the warm approval of this Department, and it is desired that you will convey to that officer in fitting terms the information of such approval; and the action of the Chinese authorities in the instant trial and summary punishment of the offenders [Page 139] is highly creditable to those officials, and at the same time affords grounds for hope that vigorous measures will be adopted by the Chinese government and faithfully pursued by its officers for the suppression and ultimate extinction of this revolting traffic within the limits of the empire.
As the representative of this Government near that of the Emperor of China, you will omit no opportunity of discountenancing the practice, at the same time holding to a strict account any citizen of the United States whose participation in it shall at any time be brought to your knowledge.
In relation to the other question, namely, that of indenturing Chinese children to the managers of Protestant mission-schools, which you present very fully and clearly in your No. 165, and upon which you request the decision of the Department, I have to state to you that in that case, also, your action is approved.
In your note of the 20th of June last to Mr. Wilson, consul at Cheefoo, (inclosure No. 4 to dispatch No. 165,) you express what I deem the correct view of that question, both in principle and policy, so forcibly and justly as to render further discussion of the question unnecessary, or that I should do more than to inform you that your views thus expressed are concurred in by the Department.
No express provision is found in the existing treaties between the United States and China upon which such contracts can rest, and it is believed that no authority to enforce their performance can be derived from those treaties either by expression or fair implication. The consequences, moreover, resulting from frequent disagreements between the parties to such contracts cannot be other than prejudicial to the friendly relations which it is desirable should be cultivated and maintained between the people of China and citizens of the United States resident in that country.
I am, &c.,