No. 37.
Mr. Seward
to Mr. Fish.
Sir: The exchange of the ratifications of the Peruvian treaty with China has been completed within the last six weeks, the Chinese text, which had been accidentally retained in Lima, having been received at Shanghai just after the close of navigation at the North.
The great object of Peru in procuring a treaty was to promote Chinese immigration. This had been virtually stopped by the action taken at Macao, here in Hong-Kong, and by the Chinese authorities. The Peruvian minister indeed did not hesitate to offer more favorable terms for Chinese immigrants than have been granted by any other state, going so far as to agree to repatriate such Chinese as desire it, whose contracts have expired and who are unable for any reason to pay their own way back. They will be admitted to the courts and treated as well generally as the peoples of the most favored nations.
Following up the policy of encouraging immigration, the Peruvian government is understood to have agreed to subsidize a line of steamships to bring the Chinese to her shores. So nearly as I can learn, the subsidy to be granted will be about $250,000. Beyond this the government will pay to the steamship company an agreed price for each laboring Chinese landed in Peru, the coolie receiving his passage without charge and the government recouping its outlay from the farmers who take the coolies under contracts to labor for one or more years. The government, it is said, proposes to guarantee to the coolie that the contract-price of his labor shall be not less than eighty cents a day.
It is likely that the first steamers will be laid on within the next six months. I believe that the flow of migration by them will be very great, [Page 49] to the great advantage of Peru, whose want of labor is pressing, and the great advantage of the unemployed class here. Other South American states are in need of labor, and this they are likely to get from here in increasing proportions if the Peruvian scheme shall prove successful.
An element of promise in the Peruvian scheme is a proposal to give to the steamers outward-bound cargoes of guano. As they must otherwise go in ballast or with a partial complement of passengers and cargo, the freight upon the guano could be reduced to a very low point. The guano would, at a low figure, find a ready sale, probably displacing to an extent the bean and pea cakes of Manchuria, now used for fertilizing purposes in vast quantities.
It is greatly to be hoped that the Peruvians will live up to their treaty engagements with the Chinese. From my intercourse with the late minister, Mr. Garcia, and the present chargé d’affaires, Mr. Elmore, I have confidence that they will.
It is also to be hoped that the ministers of China who have been appointed to visit Peru shall not unduly embarrass the republic by sending to their own government reports of an overstrained character. The only effort which China need make is to see that the treaty is carried out. It promises to her people all reasonable protection, and they may be left to decide for themselves whether they can better their condition by the exchange of residence. I have touched on this point in a previous dispatch, and mention it again because the disposition exists with certain Chinese statesmen to make capital out of the alleged abuses practiced upon their countrymen abroad, a belief which they are naturally prone to take up. It is our part, under these circumstances, in the interest of our relations with the empire, to dispute all unjust allegations of the sort.
I have, &c.,