Mr. Hay to Mr. Squiers.
Washington , July 17, 1901 .
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch, No. 640, of May 28 last, reporting that the governor of Shantung, in his desire to appease the missionaries, has agreed to pay a claim presented by Messrs. Crawford & Hudson.
[Page 99]You say: “It seems to me unfortunate that the missionary, owing to his peculiar status, can present and recover damages that an ordinary resident of the country will be precluded from doing, under the rules recently adopted by the foreign representatives. (See Mr. Rockhill’s dispatch, No. 42, March 14, 1901.) I have reference to traveling expenses to and from the United States, and extra living expenses while there;” and you add that the settlement by missionaries of the claims of native Christians has caused no end of criticism and ill-feeling, especially in the province of Chihli, and among foreigners as well as Chinese; and that while it might be at times a source of great annoyance and trouble to our consuls and the legation, you think that in the end it would prove to the best interests of the missionaries and their work if they were precluded from any official intercourse whatever with the local officials on matters pertaining to their native Christians.
In reply I have to say that, while unable to apply coercion to American citizens in the provinces to prevent their compromising their claims with the local authorities, this Department has, in its instructions to the consuls, uniformly discouraged independent negotiations between individual sufferers and the district officers for the adjustment of alleged losses, and has enjoined upon the consuls nonintervention to bring about any such piecemeal settlement of difficulties which, so far as this Government is concerned, are being settled in the course of the general negotiations at Pekin.
On the 20th of December last an instruction in that sense was sent to the consul at Amoy, which I quote for your information, as follows:
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 49, of November 7, 1900, reporting that you have adjusted all the claims for damages to American mission property and have received in settlement thereof the sum of $3,000, Mexican.
The good disposition of the local authorities is appreciated, and if the settlement effected by you is acceptable to the sufferers, the Department does not oppose it. Such partial and scattered settlements can not, however, affect this Government in dealing with the general question of a settlement with the Chinese Government which shall secure deterrent and exemplary punishment and afford guaranties for future safety of our citizens.
The position maintained by this Government is that international indemnities, especially for Americans murdered, are adjustable by the Pekin treaty, and that the negotiations can not be divided by separate local demands. If the local authorities offer to repair local losses by direct arrangement with sufferers, officers of this Government are neither to support nor object to them.
You will act accordingly in the future.
On the 21st of the same month an instruction of similar tenor was sent to the consul at Fuchau.
While regarding these separate compositions of claims as unsanctioned and as not involving any responsibility on the part of this Government to effect their execution, the Department must necessarily take equitable cognizance of them as matters of fact, if for no other reason than to bar any duplicate claim upon the international indemnity by reason of the same losses. Hence they should, whenever possible, be reported to the Department, for its information, by the legation or the consuls.
You may instruct the consuls in the sense of this instruction.
I am, etc.,