Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 6, 1904

Mr. Hay to Mr. Townsend.

[Telegram.—Paraphrase.]

Department of State,
Washington, February 16, 1904.

(Mr. Hay informs Mr. Townsend that the Government of the United States desires China’s neutrality to be respected everywhere as far as practicable in a state of war which must, of course, be carried on in part on the waters or soil of China, but to make a general agreement of the powers possible this Government can not specify metes and bounds. Our general view has been accepted by nearly all the powers, and their representatives at St. Petersburg, Peking, and Tokyo are being instructed in that sense.)