Mr. Adee to Mr. Denby.
Washington, September 6, 1895.
Sir: In your dispatch No. 2278, of the 1st of July, you submitted to the Department the proposal you had made to the Chinese Government of a mode of settling the difficulties arising out of the recent antiforeign riots in the province of Szechuan. It was contemplated that a commissioner representing the United States and Great Britain should cooperate with others acting for China in investigating on the spot the causes and extent of the riots. This proposal was accepted by the Chinese Government and approved by this Department in my telegraphic instruction to you of the 20th August, and in my instructions Nos. 1122, of August 24, and 1123, of the same date.
Under date of August 27, however, you informed the Department by cablegram that the British consul at Chungking, who was to have acted as commissioner for his Government and for that of the United States, was unable, for the time being, to leave his post.
On the same date the Department received your No. 2286, of July 10, inclosing copy of a note addressed by you on the 9th July to the Tsung-li Yamên, in which you requested that the late viceroy of Szechuan should be ordered “to come to Peking in order that if inquiry into the causes of the riots shows him to have been in fault he may be properly punished.” As it was not, however, thoroughly understood here whether Liu Ping-chang was still discharging his duties of viceroy, pending the arrival of his successor, or was simply awaiting in his province the result of the work of the investigating committee, the Department cabled to you, under date of August 30, asking you for information on [Page 127] this subject, and directing you at the same time, should this official still be acting as viceroy, to request that he be at once relieved of all such functions in view of the very serious charges preferred against him by foreigners in the various statements which they have made concerning the rôle played by him prior to and during the riots. The Department also expressed the opinion that you should not ask for the punishment of the viceroy until the ascertainment by you of his offense.
On August 31 the Department received your cablegram of same date, which I hereby confirm on the overleaf, in which you inform me that the ex-viceroy had been superseded two months ago, but had been ordered to remain at Chengtu, the provincial capital, pending the results of the investigation.
You also state, presumably after reading the report of the commission which was sent to Szechuan by the French Government, and which the Department has learned from press reports has satisfactorily terminated its labors, resulting in the conclusion of a convention between France and China and the payment by the latter power of a money indemnity to French sufferers by the riot, that the French commission had established so clearly the guilt of the viceroy that you have demanded his punishment and banishment, and you further state that you propose demanding the punishment of other officials—presumably after you have obtained the necessary proof from the French commission—and you ask the support of the Department in urging this demand. You also state that the British minister had not yet decided to send a commission to Chengtu, and that the British consul at Chungking could not yet leave his post for that purpose, as originally contemplated, and that thus was indefinitely postponed the work of the contemplated joint commission originally accepted by the various governments interested in it, and you consequently ask if the United States desire another commission to be organized.
In view of your demand for the punishment of ex-Viceroy Liu and of the unexpected delay of the minister of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government to take part in the investigation, and likewise of the inability of this Government to accept the report of the French commission, on which it was not represented, as equivalent to original proof on its own behalf on which to further urge the punishment of the ex-viceroy, it has become necessary for us to independently secure the evidence necessary to that end.
I therefore cabled you, under date of September 4, to organize an American commission, to be composed of our consul at Tientsin, an American missionary, a naval officer, to be designated by the Secretary of the Navy, and a Chinese official of sufficient rank, to proceed to Chengtu and there perform the investigation in the manner originally contemplated.
In view of the great length of time which would be occupied in ascending the Yangtze River as far as Chungking by native boat, it has been deemed advisable to send the commission by the overland route, via Tung-kuan, Hsi-an Fu, and Han-chung, by which considerable time will be saved.
The Department confidently expects that you will exercise all possible diligence in organizing and dispatching the commission, so that no further delay will be experienced in carrying to completion this most important work.
I am, etc.,
Acting Secretary