Mr. Tower to Mr. Hay.

No. 541.]

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram of March 1.

I communicated the contents of this dispatch to the Count Lamsdorff, Imperial Russian minister for foreign affairs, as instructed by you to do, in a note dated the 3d of March, which I handed to him at a personal interview on that day. A copy of that note is respectfully inclosed herewith.

I have, etc.,

Charlemagne Tower.
[Inclosure.]

Mr. Tower to Count Lamsdorff.

Mr. Minister for Foreign Affairs: I have the honor to inform your excellency that I have been instructed by a telegram from the honorable Secretary of State of the United States of America to communicate to you the fact that the negotiations carried on between Great Britain and Japan, which have terminated in the treaty recently entered into by those two powers, were absolutely unknown to the Government of the United States until the day when the terms of that treaty were made public.

I am also to say to your excellency that neither the Government of Great Britain nor that of Japan was consulted by the United States Government in regard to the memorandum of the 1st of February, 1902, upon the subject of the Russo-Chinese Bank. The proximity of date between that memorandum and the British-Japanese treaty was entirely accidental.

I avail, etc.,

Charlemagne Tower.
[Page 931]

Memorandum handed to the Secretary of State March 19, 1902.

[Translation.]

The allied Governments of Russia and France having received communication of the Anglo-Japanese convention of January 30, 1902, concluded for the object of assuring status quo and general peace in the Far East as well as of maintaining the independence of China and Korea, which countries must remain open to the commerce of all nations, have found therein, with full satisfaction, the affirmation of the essential principles that they themselves have repeatedly declared to be and remain the foundation of their policy. The two Governments consider the observance of those principles to be at the same time a guaranty for their special interests in the Far East. Being, however, under the necessity of taking into account, for their own part, the contingency of either the aggressive action of third powers or renewed disturbances in China, by which the integrity and free development of that power would be put in doubt, becoming a menace, for their own interests the two allied Governments reserve to themselves the right eventually to devise suitable means to insure their protection.

Memorandum.

The Government of the United States has pleasure in taking note of the declaration of the allied Governments of Russia and France that, having received communication of the Anglo-Japanese convention of January 30, 1902, which was concluded for the purpose of assuring the status quo and general peace in the Far East as well as maintaining the independence of China and Korea, which countries should remain open to the commerce and industry of all nations, they have found full satisfaction in seeing therein the affirmation of the essential principles which they have themselves on repeated occasions declared to form and continue to be the bases of their policy.

The Government of the United States is gratified to see in this declaration of the allied Governments of Russia and France, as in the Anglo-Japanese convention, renewed confirmation of the assurances it has heretofore received from each of them regarding their concurrence with the views which this Government has from the outset announced and advocated in respect to the conservation of the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire as well as of Korea, and the maintenance of complete liberty of intercourse between those countries and all nations in matters of trade and industry.

With regard to the concluding paragraph of the Russian memorandum the Government of the United States, while sharing the views therein expressed as to the continuance of the “open-door” policy against possible encroachment from whatever quarter, and while equally solicitous for the unfettered development of independent China, reserves for itself entire liberty of action should circumstances unexpectedly arise whereby the policy and interests of the United States in China and Korea might be disturbed or impaired.