[Inclosure in No. 1321.]
The foreign
representatives to the tsung-li
yamên.
Your Highness and Your Excellencies: The
undersigned, representatives of Belgium, France, the German Empire,
Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and the United
States, have had the honor to receive the note which your highness and
your excellencies have addressed to them on May 30 in reply to their
joint note of May 20. They regret to have to state that they can not but
consider the yamên’s reply to their note and the demands contained in it
as entirely unsatisfactory; they do not wish to enter into a discussion
with your highness and your excellencies on the subject of the
instructions forwarded by the yamén on the occasion of the last or
former outrages against foreigners in China, but they maintain the
statement made in their joint note of May 20 that in no single instance
during the last four or five years had Chinese engaged in an attack upon
foreigners been punished, nor had satisfaction of another kind, except
the payment of indemnities in some isolated cases, been obtained; and
they challenge your highness and your excellencies to quote to them a
single case in which the action of the Chinese Government or the
provincial and local authorities had brought about the punishment of the
offenders, though in more than one instance the names of ringleaders and
instigators of outrages and attacks have been given to the yamên and the
local authorities. Placards inciting the population to the murder or
expulsion of foreigners have been known to remain posted up in
prefectural and other cities for months and years without being removed,
and the officials in whose districts such things took place, instead of
being punished for their remissness, have been rewarded for the
efficiency of their administration.
Even during the last outrages the measures adopted by the provincial and
local authorities have been in most of the cases insufficient to protect
foreigners, and, though your highness and your excellencies have been
informing us of the punishment inflicted upon some of the ringleaders
and rioters at Wuhu, this action seems neither to have had the desired
deterrent effect, later telegrams announcing the going on of
disturbances and outrages in the valley of the Yangtse and elsewhere,
nor can it be considered sufficient if at one place some rioters are
punished while at all the other places where outrages have occurred
nothing is done to mete out punishment to those who so richly deserve
it. Your highness and your excellencies seemed inclined at the
conference of the 25th of May to throw some blame upon the foreign
missionaries for not making a careful enough selection among the persons
admitted to the Christian faith, and for attempting to screen native
converts against the Chinese authorities. Your highness, and your
excellencies were then told that, while great prudence in general might
be recommended to missionaries, the principle that the conversion of a
Chinaman to Christianity did not withdraw him from the jurisdiction of
his own authorities could easily be once more expressly recognized by
the foreign representatives. The undersigned fully agree with this
declaration; but they must also remind your highness and your
excellencies, as the representatives of France, the German Empire, and
Great Britain did already at the before-mentioned conference, that under
the treaties every Chinaman is free to embrace, to exercise, and to
propagate the Christian religion, and that the treaties assure to him
protection against molestation and persecution on religious grounds.
They must insist that these stipulations of the treaties shall be better
observed in future than they have been in the past, and they most
emphatically declare that they will not permit members of Christian
communities to be prosecuted judicially for accusations of witchcraft,
or of those abominable crimes which ignorance and hatred attribute to
missionaries and converts alike. Your highness and your excellencies are
perfectly aware how utterly baseless and calumnious such accusations
are, and the undersigned have the right to demand that the Chinese
Government shall openly declare them to be so, and shall instruct the
provincial and local authorities that, if such accusations are brought
forward against Christians again, the accusers shall be arrested and
punished, and not the accused.
The latest outrages at Wuhu, Auking, Nanking, Tauyang, and other places,
and the very-much-to-be-regretted position taken up by the taotai of
Wuhu during and after the disturbances which have occurred at that
place, make it absolutely necessary [Page 408] that steps should be taken without delay by the
Chinese Government to protect foreigners at the open ports and in the
interior against the recurrence of similar outrages.
The undersigned must therefore repeat the demands which the
representatives oi France, Great Britain, and the German Empire have
addressed to the yamên in the name of all representatives of treaty
powers at the interview of May 25, and in the “note verbale” of the 27th
of the same month, i. e., that the ringleaders
and participators in the disturbances at the Yangtse ports and in the
interior shall be quickly and severely punished; that those officials
whose attitude during or after the riots has given rise to just
complaints shall be publicly disavowed by the Imperial Government and
punished where necessary; that by an imperial edict, to be published
without delay in the Peking Gazette, the highest provincial authorities
shall be ordered to issue proclamations informing the people of the
calumnious character of the accusation brought against missionaries and
converts, and threatening to punish the propagators of such calumnies;
that by the same edict the provincial authorities shall be instructed to
provide better means of protection than heretofore for foreigners at the
open ports and in the interior, rendering the local officials personally
responsible for their safety; and, finally, that by imperial edict the
provincial authorities shall be instructed to settle, according to right
and justice, within the shortest possible delay, the pending cases of
complaints, many of which have been waiting in vain for adjustment for a
number of years. The undersigned would consider it in the interest of a
speedy and satisfactory settlement of the present difficulty and as the
best means of preventing the further spread of the disturbances now
reigning in the valley of the Yangtse if your highness and your
excellencies would communicate to them, in advance and in an informal
manner, the terms of the memorial to be presented to His Majesty the
Emperor by the yamên, so as to allow them to offer any suggestions the
necessity for which might present itself to them; but they must, at the
same time, beg your highness and your excellencies to understand that if
the yamên should object to a previous understanding about the contents
and terms of the memorial to be presented to the Throne being arrived at
they will not consider as a satisfaction for the past outrages or as a
guaranty for the future any imperial edict the terms of which should
leave the slightest doubt as to the firm determination of the Imperial
Government to prevent the repetition of similar acts and to see the
instigators and the perpetrators of them punished. The impression
produced by the silence of the Chinese Government, which, though the
outrages at Wuhu, Auking, and Nanking are over a fortnight old, have
neither seen fit to express their regret for what has taken place, nor
taken any measures to show their disapproval of the position taken up by
some of the local authorities, especially the taotai of Wuhu, is
certainly a very unfavorable one, and can not but be considered as a
proof that the Imperial Chinese Government appreciate fully neither the
gravity of the situation nor the duties which the presence of foreigners
in China imposes upon them. It is, however, impossible for the
undersigned to accept any longer the responsibility of seeing the
present situation prolonged; they have, therefore, the honor to inform
your highness and your excellencies that, unless they should have
received within a reasonable number of days the published text of the
imperial edict demanded in this note, they will at once and without
further delay communicate with their respective governments and inform
them of their inability to obtain from the Imperial Government the
adoption of those measures which they can alone consider as an at least
partial satisfaction for the past and a guaranty for the future.
The undersigned avail themselves,
(Signed by all the foreign representatives in Peking.)
