The Secretary of State to the Japanese Minister.
Washington, October 2, 1905.
Sir: Upon the receipt of your note of the 29th ultimo, a telegram was dispatched to the American embassy at St. Petersburg, instructing it to make known to the Russian Government that the Imperial Japanese Government have arranged to remit the imprisonment of all the Russian prisoners of war held by Japan, irrespective of the nature of the penalty to which they have been condemned, on the day on which the peace treaty shall come into force provided that [Page 606] the Russian Government would, on the same date, likewise remit the imprisonment of all the Japanese prisoners of war held by it.
With reference to the place where the delivery of prisoners shall take place, I am now enabled to advise you, on information supplied by the embassy in a telegram received late on Saturday, that the Russian Government shares entirely the point of view of your government as to accelerating as much as possible the preparations for the delivery and accepts in principle the proposition of your government for the giving back of the Japanese prisoners on the western frontier of the Empire and for receiving the prisoners and other Russians detained in Japan at the ports of Nagasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama, as soon as preliminary arrangement is made. The embassy adds that the Russian Government will immediately communicate with the Japanese Government through the usual diplomatic channels.
Accept, etc.,