Mr. Gresham to Mr. Denby, chargé.
Washington, September 18, 1894.
Sir: Referring to my instructions of the 29th ultimo, in relation to the exercise by our diplomatic and consular representatives in China of good offices in behalf of Japanese subjects in that country, I inclose herewith for your information a copy of an imperial ordinance promulgated at Tokyo on the 4th of August last, touching the status of Chinese subjects in Japan.
By the treaty between China and Japan, signed at Tientsin September 13, 1871. it is provided in article 13, which relates to the trial and punishment of offenses committed in the jurisdiction of one of the contracting parties by subjects of the other, that “when arrested and brought up for trial, the offender, if at a port, shall be tried by the local authority and the consul together. In the interior he shall be tried and dealt with by the local authority, who will officially communicate the facts of the case to the consul.”
The treaties between China and Japan being abrogated by the state of war now existing between the two countries, the consuls of the one country no longer exercise the powers and the qualified jurisdictional intervention with which they were invested by the treaties in the territory of the other in time of peace. The Japanese Government, therefore, in the first article of the imperial ordinance, declares that Chinese subjects in Japan shall be wholly subject to the jurisdiction of the Japanese courts. The abrogation of the treaties is necessarily attended with the same effect upon the status of Japanese subjects in China as upon that of Chinese subjects in Japan; and this Government, as has heretofore been stated, can not invest Japanese subjects in China, or Chinese subjects in Japan, with an extraterritoriality which they do not possess as the subjects of their own sovereign.
The good offices, however, which this Government has granted are to be exercised on all proper occasions and to the full extent allowed by international law.
I am, etc.,