Office of the Historian

Viscount Aoki to Mr. Buck.

[Translation.]
Department of Foreign Affairs,
Tokyo, the 26th day, the 12th month of the 32d year of Meiji,
(December 26, 1899).

Mr. Minister: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the note No. 176 of the 20th instant, in which, pursuing the instructions of the United States Government, your excellency was so good as to communicate to the Imperial Government the representations of the United States as presented in notes to Russia, Germany, and Great Britain on the subject of commercial interests of the United States in China.

I have the happy duty of assuring your excellency that the Imperial Government will have no hesitation to give their assent to so just and fair a proposal of the United States, provided that all the other powers concerned shall accept the same.

I avail myself, etc.,

Viscount Aoki Siuzo,
Minister for Foreign Affairs.