You will observe that he holds $5,833.33, which he says is the pro-portion
paid on the special damages adjudged, and which he says is payable to me as
the representative of the United States. I am wholly unadvised as to the
payments hitherto made by the Japanese government on account of this
indemnity, and therefore, before acting in the matter, I respectfully ask
instructions from the Department, and beg leave in this connection to call
your attention especially to my dispatch No. 55, above referred to.
I deem it my duty to await your instructions, and have to request that you
will favor me with them at your earliest convenience.
[Inclosure.]
Mr. Parkes to Mr.
Bingham.
Her
Britannic Majesty’s Legation,
Yedo, February 23,
1874.
Sir: You will doubtless have heard that the
Japanese government have preferred to proceed with the payment of the
moiety of the Simonoseki indemnity, which remains due under the
convention of October 22, 1864, rather than relax the restrictions to
which foreigners are subjected in this country, and that they have
lately delivered to the ministers of France and the Netherlands and to
myself $125,000 each, as three one-fourth shares of fourth installment
of the said indemnity. A certain portion of the money thus received by
me is transferable to yourself, and in order to explain this
circumstance it appears necessary that I should trouble you with the
following reference to the arrangements, concluded more than eight years
ago, between our respective governments in regard to the division of
this indemnity.
The mode of dividing this money between the four powers to whom it was
payable, namely, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United
States, was discussed at Paris in 1865. The French minister for foreign
affairs, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, suggested the division should be made
according to the proportion which the forces of
[Page 670]
each power in Japan bore to the aggregate forces
of the four, while the United States minister to France, Mr. Bigelow,
contended that each power should be considered to have contributed
equally by its moral support to the success of the common cause,
irrespective of the material force which each brought into the held, and
which is detailed in the margin—France, 1,225 men; Great Britain, 5,156
men; Netherlands, 951 men; United States, 258 men—and, therefore, that
each power should receive an equal share of the indemnity. Her Majesty’s
government willingly concurred in Mr. Bigelow’s proposal in order to
mark their estimation of the value of united action between all the
powers then represented in Japan, and the division of the indemnity in
equal shares was accordingly agreed to by the four governments.
It was also at the same time agreed that compensation for certain
injuries sustained by French subjects and for certain damages done to
United States and Netherlands ships at the Straits of Simonoseki prior
to the joint operations of the four powers against Choshieu should be
assessed at $140,000 in the case of each of the said three powers, and
that the total amount of these special compensations, or $420,000,
should form a first charge on the Simonoseki indemnity and be paid
ratably out of each installment. That is to say, that the indemnity
being payable in six installments of $500,000 each, one-sixth of the sum
due for these special compensations, or $70,000, was to be deducted from
each installment as it was received from the Japanese government, and
was to be divided between France, the Netherlands, and the United
States, while the balance of each installment after the above deduction
had been made, or $430,000, was to be divided equally between the said
three powers and Great Britain.
Consequently on each of these three occasions when an installment of the
said indemnity has been paid by the Japanese government to the
representatives of the four powers in equal proportions of $125,000
each, the British representative, acting in conformity with the above
arrangement of the four governments, has accepted only $107,500 of the
sum thus tendered to him—this being a one-fourth share of $430,000— and
has handed the amount paid to him in excess, namely, $17,500, to the
representatives of France, the Netherlands, and the United States, in
order that it might be applied to the payment of their special
compensations.
In the same way, it is now incumbent upon me to accept; on the part of
Her Majesty’s government in the case of the division of the present or
fourth installment, only $107,500, instead of $125,000, which has been
delivered to me by the Japanese government, and I have to place the
difference, or $17,500, at the disposal of the representatives of
France, the Netherlands, and the United States.
The proportion of this sum which is payable to yourself, is $5,833.33,
and I should feel obliged if you would inform me of your wishes in
respect to this money.
I have, &c.,
