No. 422.
Mr. Bingham to Mr. Evarts.
Tokei , February 9, 1881. (Received March 8.)
Sir: It gives me pleasure to say that Mr. Joseph U. Crawford, an American engineer, has within about one year completed a railway for this government in the island of Yesso, 23 miles in length, equal in all respects to the railway of 18 miles as originally constructed between Tokei and Yokohama, and, as I am advised, built at one-eighth the cost of the latter, which was constructed by English engineers. I am also advised that the topography of the country over which Mr. Crawford constructed this road in Yesso presented much greater difficulties than the region traversed by the railway between this capital and Yokohama.
The expedition and economy exemplified by Mr. Crawford in constructing this road (Which, I am glad to say, is worked by American locomotives and equipped with American coal, freight, and passenger cars) have commanded the approval of this government. It has pleased His Majesty the Emperor of Japan to signify his high appreciation of Mr. Crawford by conferring on him the “order of the Rising Sun.”
I have, &c.,