Minister Rockhill
to the Secretary of State.
American Legation,
Peking, August 17,
1905.
No. 60.]
Sir: In further confirmation of my cable
dispatch of the 12th instant, informing you that I had, under the
authority given me by the Department, informed the Chinese Government
that the United States would hold it directly responsible for all losses
our trade or other
[Page 213]
interests
may have incurred or may hereafter incur on account of its failure to
protect us in the rights guaranteed us under Article XV of our treaty of
1858. I inclose herewith copy of the note addressed to Prince
Ch’ing.
I also informed our consuls-general at Shanghai, Canton, and Chefoo of
what I had done, and authorized them to use this information as they
deemed necessary and expedient.
Under date of the 14th instant I again addressed a note to Prince Ch’ing,
demanding that the prime mover in the boycott, a man by the name of
Tseng Shao-ching, president of the Fu-Kien Merchants’ Guild of Shanghai,
and holding the rank of prefect (taot’ai), be deprived of his rank and
otherwise punished.
On the same date I also addressed a letter to the foreign office,
declining to further discuss a tentative draft of treaty for regulating
the coming of Chinese to the United States, to be submitted to you,
until the present campaign of intimidation was completely put an end
to.
I have not at this date received replies to any of the above
communications, but will probably within the next few days.
Our consul-general at Shanghai tells me he has informed the public of my
note of the 14th instant to the foreign office, and that it had produced
an excellent effect. I inclose a Shanghai editorial on this matter, also
one from Chefoo, showing that it has also been well received there.
I beg that the Department will not attach importance to the statements
being made in the ports and in the United States press that the Japanese
Government has had anything to do with encouraging the present
anti-American movement. The conduct of the Japanese Government has been
not only friendly throughout, but their foreign office has done all in
its power to arrest the movement and control the Japanese controlled
papers published in China.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure 1.]
Minister Rockhill to Prince
Ch’ing.
American Legation,
Peking, August 7,
1905.
Your Highness: I had the honor in
interviews with you in the last two months of drawing your earnest
attention to the very serious nature of the movement then being
openly organized in Shanghai, Canton, and other large cities of
China to interfere with, and, if possible, completely impede
American trade as a means of intimidating the United States
Government, which is seeking to meet with your wishes for a new
treaty regulating the coming of Chinese into the United States and
for forcing upon us a repeal of our laws concerning the exclusion of
Chinese laborers.
In several communications which I addressed to you I also insisted on
the danger which might result from failure on the part of the
Imperial Government to arrest the movement, which, if carried into
effect, would greatly disturb and possibly cause serious loss to
trade, breed a spirit of enmity between the peoples of our
respective countries, and perhaps even result in acts of
violence.
In conversations with His Excellency Na-tung I have also on several
occasions dwelt on the growing gravity of the situation in Shanghai,
Canton, and Amoy, and urged on him, as I had on you, that the
Imperial Government should take prompt and radical measures for
putting an end to the ever-increasing menace to our trade and the
perfect cordiality and friendliness which characterized our
relations so markedly.
I was answered by your note of July 1 that the high provincial
authorities had been urged by you to use their influence with the
people to dissuade them from the contemplated organized interference
with our trade, but you also stated therein, much to my
astonishment:
[Page 214]
“My board finds upon investigation that this movement has not been
inaugurated without some reason, for the restrictions against the
Chinese entering America are too strong, and American exclusion laws
are extremely inconvenient to the Chinese. The Coolie immigration
treaty has been abrogated, but, though the treaty is null and void,
the exclusion restrictions are still in force. The great
inconvenience suffered by Chinese merchants has thus led to this
movement, but if the restrictions can be lightened by your
government and a treaty drawn up in a friendly manner then this
agitation will of its own accord die out.”
I was constrained to conclude from this passage that the movement had
a certain amount of sympathy from your highness’s government. It is
also to be presumed that the orders you informed me had been given
out to the provincial authorities in this manner were not of such an
emphatic nature as the gravity of the situation required, for the
movement went on openly under the guidance and active participation
of high officials, and the organization, with the help of threats of
violence against the lukewarm and by the use of other methods of
pressure, developed rapidly and has now been put in force,
especially at Shanghai, Canton, and Amoy.
Recently, on the 24th of July, in an interview with His Excellency
Na-tung, when calling his attention to an outrage committed on the
premises of our consulate at Amoy on the 18th of July (the day on
which the boycott against American trade was put in operation at
Shanghai and Amoy), I urged in the most pressing manner that
proclamations should be issued in all localities which had taken up
or might later take up this movement to effectively put a stop to
it. He promised to confer with you and to urge the adoption of this
course; but I have heard nothing from the Waiwu Pu on the matter,
neither have I learned that proclamations or any general measures
had been taken, either by the Imperial Government or the provincial
authorities, adequate to arrest the trouble in time. I must except,
however, the Province of Chihli, where measures adopted by the
provincial high authorities appear to have arrested it before it
could be put in force.
Your highness must be perfectly aware that the prime movers in the
agitation are men holding high official positions. I need only cite
among them Taot’ai Tseng, the president of the Chamber of Commerce
of Shanghai, who has given much time and money to strengthen and
develop the movement and has done probably more than any other
individual to intensify the feeling of hostility toward my
government and people by his false and malicious statements in his
eagerness to bring about the boycott. Other officials could be named
who, in Shanghai and elsewhere, have taken active part in this
campaign of slander and falsehood, but it seems needless at this
time to do so. I only refer to the active participation of officials
in the movement to show how easy it would have been for the central
government to have had stringent orders for the suppression of the
movement carried out, if it had been earnestly desirous of doing
so.
The President of the United States, justly surprised at the
extraordinary supineness the Imperial Government has shown in this
matter, which agrees so little with the friendliness he thought he
had reason to expect of it, directs me to inform your highness that
the Government of the United States will hold it directly
responsible for any loss our interests have sustained or may
hereafter have to bear through the manifest failure on the part of
the Imperial Government to stop the present organized movement
against us, which the Presi dent considers is allowed to continue in
open violation of the rights guaranteed to us by China in Article XV
of our treaty of 1858.
I trust that your highness will favor me with an early reply which I
may transmit to the President.
I avail, etc.,
[Inclosure 2.]
Minister Rockhill to Prince
Ch’ing.
American Legation,
Peking, August 14,
1905.
Your Imperial Highness: In the note which I
had the honor to send to your highness on the 7th instant in
reference to the agitation now being carried on in many cities of
the Empire against the Government of the United States and the
commercial and other interests of our people, I took occasion to
draw your attention to the active operation of persons holding
official rank in the movement.
While I have not yet completed the list of officials who have shown
pernicious activity in the movement, which list I shall have the
honor in due course of submitting to your highness, I have again to
bring to your attention the particularly violent and open hostility
against American interests of the head of the Fu-Kien Merchants’
Guild in Shanghai, a man by the name of Tseng Shao-ching, holding
the rank of taot’ai. This person, as I stated in my former note of
the 7th instant, is one of the prime movers in this unlawful
movement, and I have
[Page 215]
therefore to demand that he be at once deprived of his official rank
as a proof of the displeasure his conduct has given the Imperial
Government in his attack against a friendly government, and
otherwise punished as your government may deem the gravity of his
offense justifies, and my government is willing to accept as partial
reparation therefor.
I avail, etc.,
[Inclosure 3.]
Minister Rockhill to Prince
Ch’ing.
American Legation,
Peking, August 14,
1905.
Your Imperial Highness: I have the honor to
acknowledge the receipt of your note of August 7 with regard to the
new treaty of immigration, In reply I have the honor to state that
in view of the present agitation being carried on in Shanghai and
elsewhere against the Government and people of the United States for
the purpose of influencing the negotiations to which your note
refers, I have been directed by my government to cease any further
discussion of the matter. When the Imperial Government has taken
such action as is necessary to effectually stop the present unlawful
Attempt to interfere with our treaty rights my government will
consider whether the negotiations can be resumed.
I avail, etc.,
[Inclosure 4.]
[North China Daily News, August 12.]
President Roosevelt and the
boycott.
The boycott has extended so far beyond the ideas of its original
promoters, has become so irresponsible, and is calculated to be so
damaging, not only to Americans, but to all foreigners in China and
their trade and prosperity, that the United States Government at any
rate has determined to take a firm stand, and Mr. Rockhill, the
American minister at Peking, has been directed by President
Roosevelt to notify the Chinese Government that that government will
be held directly responsible for the full observance of Article XV
of the United States treaty of Tientsin, 1858: “At each of the ports
open to commerce, citizens of the United States shall be permitted
to import from abroad and sell, purchase, and export all merchandise
of which the importation is not prohibited by the laws of the
Empire.”
The United States Government holds that the boycott, by its
interference with trade, is a breach of this article and proposes to
hold the Chinese Government responsible for that breach. It is to be
hoped that the government will act promptly, for it is impossible to
say how widely and deeply the boycott will extend if it is not
stopped. Antiforeign proclamations are already appearing at the
river ports full of lying charges and misstatements, and we know by
experience how small a pretext will start the predatory classes in
China into action. There is besides the certainty of a very serious
financial crisis here if the boycott is not stopped in which natives
will suffer at least as much as foreigners.
In his recent instructions as to the carrying out of the
Chinese-exclusion act President Roosevelt has done everything
possible to satisfy the complaints of the Chinese, and it is now the
duty of the latter to wait and see the text of the new treaty. The
Chinese Government, blind as it is, must be able, surely, to realize
the danger of antagonizing the United States, as well as all other
powers that participate in the foreign trade of China.
A scrutiny of the dates in the Wuhu proclamation published yesterday
in these columns is decidedly interesting and suggestive. The
proclamation was issued on the 30th ultimo, and its writer says that
he received his dispatch from the governor on which it is founded on
the 13th ultimo, so that it took him seventeen days to make up his
mind to issue the proclamation. But the more important question is:
Was or was not a similar dispatch sent to the taot’ai here nearly a
month ago? And if it was sent why has the taot’ai done nothing to
discourage the boycott? It will have to be discouraged now, and none
will be better pleased at its total suppression than the Chinese
merchants in Shanghai, who, like Frankenstein, have created a
monster which has got beyond their control.
[Page 216]
[Inclosure 5.]
[Chefoo
Daily News, August
13, 1905.]
Chinese merchants in Chefoo have acted wisely in moving slowly in the
boycott of American products. The wisdom of their action lies in the
probability that they have avoided serious difficulty with a
powerful nation. Mr. Fowler, American consul-general, yesterday
notified the taot’ai that by direction of the President of the
United States the American minister has notified the Chinese foreign
office that the Government of the United States will hold it
directly responsible for any loss which United States trade may have
sustained or may hereafter be subjected to by any failure on its
part to protect American trade in the full enjoyment of the rights
and privileges guaranteed the United States under the provisions of
Article XV of the treaty of 1858 between the United States and
China. Mr. Fowler has also notified the taot’ai of this, so that it
will be on record.
Thus is the position of the United States with reference to the
attempted boycott fully defined by President Roosevelt. There can be
no mistaking the words of the President’s message. He is turning on
the screws and dealing with the silly movement in exactly the way it
should be dealt with.
The article of the treaty mentioned is as follows:
“At each of the ports open to commerce citizens of the United States
shall be permitted to import from abroad and sell, purchase, and
export all merchandise of which the importation or exportation is
not prohibited by the laws of the Empire. The tariff of duties to be
paid by citizens of the United States on the export and import of
goods from and into China shall be the same as was agreed upon at
the treaty of Wanghi, except so far as it may be modified by
treaties with other nations, it being expressly agreed that citizens
of the United States shall never pay higher duties than those paid
by the most favored nation.”
The boycott never assumed tangible proportions in Chefoo. Many of the
merchants here had great pressure brought to bear upon them in an
effort to induce them to join the movement, but they acted wisely
and waited. According to their own statements they were bolstered up
in their position, which has been somewhat wavering up to date, by
the determined stand of the American consul-general here, who
frankly told them two weeks ago that if they joined the movement
they would have more to answer for to the United States authorities
than to the boycott agitators if they did not listen to the latter.
They will now be able to see wherein they acted the better part
unless, perchance, they choose to defy the military and naval power
of the American Republic. Casting aside the latter possibility, the
boycott in Chefoo and vicinity is dead and in its coffin.
