The Secretary of State to Minister Rockhill.
Washington, March 10, 1906.
Sir: In your dispatch No. 206, of January 21 last, in which you acknowledge the receipt of instruction No. 76, of December 9 last, inclosing a copy of a letter from Mr. F. W. Sutterle, managing [Page 267] director of the American-Chinese Company, in which he says that the so-called experimental mining regulations in force in China are in direct contradiction to the spirit of Article VII of the treaty” of October 8, 1903, you say:
In my dispatch No. 153, of November 24, and No. 177, of December 23, 1905, I had the honor to transmit to you copies of notes sent by me to the Chinese foreign office protesting against said mining regulations and subsequent ones.
I beg that the department will instruct me on what other points it desires me to request the Chinese Government to amend these regulations, as my knowledge of the matter is not sufficient for me to venture much beyond the points indicated as objectionable by the Secretary of the Interior in his letter to the Secretary of State under date of August 27, 1904 (Foreign Relations 1904, pp. 161–167), and especially the inclosure thereto which I used in my note to the Chinese foreign office of November 29, 1905, above referred to.
Instruction No. 114, of the 2d instant, will have shown you the desire of this Government that the mining regulations be so amended as to remove all discrimination against foreign miners and secure their peaceful and practical working of their properties. Your British and German colleagues can presumably have no less interest in such a result than we have.
Keeping in view our own purpose to secure equal, just, and nondiscriminatory treatment for Americans interested in mining operations, and making yourself acquainted with the demands put forward by other governments, you should have little difficulty in deciding upon what points you may go outside of or beyond the indication of the letter of the Secretary of the Interior of August 27, 1904. That letter is not to be regarded as limiting a sound discretion on your part.
I am, etc.