No. 185.
Mr. Fish
to Mr. Bingham.
Washington, December 20, 1876.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatches Nos. 457 and 462, dated, respectively, 24th October and 9th November last, with inclosures, relating to the harbor and customs regulations for the Ogasawara (or Bonin) Islands, recently promulgated by the Japanese Government, certain provisions of which you believe to be at variance with the treaty of 1858 with Japan.
Article 7, chapter II, of the harbor regulations, and article 12, chapter III, of the customs regulations, which provide for the trial and punishment by Japanese tribunals of violations of these regulations, seem to be in conflict with the sixth article of the treaty of 1858, so far as they may be calculated to subject citizens of the United States to trial and condemnation by Japanese officers.
Your course in suggesting to the foreign office the propriety of sending offending Americans to our consuls in Japan for trial is approved.
The regulations seem calculated to extend commercial and trading facilities to our own as well as to the citizens of other powers, and may be the means of opening a valuable opportunity of employment of capital and of industry to our people. They are thus far to be regarded with favor; but we should jealously guard the right of trial and of punishment of our own citizens secured to them by the treaty.
It is hoped that you may induce the Japanese authorities to see the importance of opening the new trade contemplated, and, at the same time, that the proposed subjecting of our citizens to trial and condemnation by a purely local or Japanese tribunal will be in conflict with the treaty.
I am, &c.,