No. 182.
Mr. Seward
to Mr. Cadwalader.
United
States Consulate-General,
Shanghai, November 11, 1874.
(Received December 26.)
No. 847.]Sir: I have the honor to transmit to you the
newspaper reports in regard to the Formosan difficulty since the date of my
last letter in this connection. You will see that a settlement has been
arrived at. I am not able to say whether the Chinese have made an
unqualified admission that the Japanese were right in going to Formosa. Nor
can I say whether, if they have made this admission, they have not been
actuated by a desire to preserve the peace, even at the cost of their own
dignity. The money paid by China is to go in part to the alleged Lewchewan
sufferers. The remainder is paid, as it is claimed, as a consideration for
the material which the Japanese leave upon the island. The Japanese
admission of the sovereignty of China is unqualified. The provisions for the
lighting of the Formosan coast, the occupation of the savage territory,
&c., are in the interests of civilization and humanity. Japan has been
to all appearance the winner. This has happened because she has been the
bolder and more active. She had no heart in the quarrel as a quarrel. She
did not undertake it in the interests of humanity, as has been claimed. A
number of her restless men, supported by an idle soldiery, made a foreign
enterprise the alternative of civil war. They wanted to go to Corea, but
Iwakura prevented this. They then prepared to go to Formosa, but the
government, uncertain as to the merits of the matter, and unprepared to
precipitate a quarrel with China, ordered that the expedition should be
arrested at Nagasaki. Its leaders, however, went on in defiance of the
government. From that time the efforts of Japan have really been directed
toward a preservation of the peace, but in face of the fact that the
expedition had left their soil and descended upon that of China, they had no
alternative but to assume a bold attitude. This attitude they have preserved
throughout, and they have won from China what the world will consider a
victory. That victory brings them 500,000 taels, or say $666,000, and has
cost them $6,000,000 of expenditure. I do not hesitate to say again, as I
have said in the past, that while China ought to have taken better care of
the Formosa coast than she has done, the course of Japan has not been
straightforward. She never even hinted to China that she had suffered
gravely in Formosa. She never mentioned that she should send there a great
expedition. She never said that she would hold China responsible for the
expenses of that expedition. She has simply allowed a lot of her
discontented people to force a great raid upon the territory of an
unoffending nation, and she has then under threat of war extorted from that
nation a settlement which will seem to defend all that she has done. If
there is one lesson rather than another which I should take out of the whole
business, it is that when the Chinese are so timid as to yield in such
manner to unreasonable demands it is a pity that they cannot be brought to
listen to those reasonable representations in favor of internal improvements
and the like, which are always being urged upon them in an indifferent
way.
I have, &c.,
[Page 406]
[Inclosure 1 in No.
847.—Translation.]
FORMOSA.
Placard by “All the scholars and people
of Formosa.”
[From the Japan Mail.]
The following is the public expression of our opinion:
It appears to us that the whole of Formosa has been included in the map
of China for more than two hundred years; and that the several emperors
of our country in their successive reigns have been moderate in
inflicting punishment and sparing of taxation, so that the four classes
of people have enjoyed happiness and have grown and prospered. As to the
wild aborigines behind the hills, with their dwellings perched on high
or burrowed in the earth, they are far from having human feelings. Yet
in the years which have gone by, the savage aborigines have turned into
tame aborigines, and the tame ones have turned into citizens; so that
the orderly citizens of to-day are all the wild aborigines of former
times.
* * * * * * *
[Inclosure 2 in No. 847.]
Settlement of the Formosa difficulty.
Shanghai, November 9,
1874.
[From the North China Daily News.]
The uncertainty which prevailed as to the issue of the negotiations
between China and Japan, regarding the Formosa expedition, was put an
end to on Saturday by the arrival of steamers from the north, bringing
not only news of the peaceful settlement of the difficulty, but the
Japanese ambassador, Okubo, and his numerous suite. A treaty embodying
the terms of settlement was signed on 31st October by the Japanese
ambassador and the chiefs of the Tsung-li Yamun. So far as we have been
able to ascertain, it admits, on the part of Japan, the sovereignty of
China over the whole of Formosa; and on the part of China, that Japan
was justified in dispatching the expedition, under the circumstances of
the massacre of her Loochewan subjects and the action taken upon it at
the time the treaty of friendship and commerce was negotiated between
the two countries. It then provides for the payment of the sum of Tls.
500,000, one-fifth of which is in the nature of compensation to the
families of the murdered Loochewans, and is to be paid at once; the
remaining Tls. 400,000 as indemnity for the expenses of the expedition,
to be paid when the Japanese retire from Formosa, which it is stipulated
they shall do by 20th December. The indemnity is to be paid out of the
revenues of the Foochow and Tien-tsin customs. The Japanese high
commissioner having thus settled the matter, left Peking at once; and It
is now his intention, we understand, to proceed very shortly to Amoy and
Formosa in the Kanagawa-Maru, (late P. and O. steamer Madras,) instead
of returning direct to Japan, in order that the stipulations of the
treaty may be carried out under his own eye. It is difficult to
understand the object of his doing so, but it may be conjectured, if we
recall the contradictory conditions under which the expedition set out
from Japan. The Kanagawa-Maru arrived here yesterday, in order to be at
the disposal of the commissioner. The Japanese resident-minister,
Yanigawari, remains at Peking, as we are informed, to have audience of
the Emperor before returning to Japan. General Le Gendre and other
gentlemen connected with the embassy have gone to Japan in the
war-vessels which were waiting the result of the negotiations at
Tien-tsin and Chefoo. Congratulatory and complimentary visits have
already taken place between the Chinese and Japanese officials in
Shanghai. Immediately previous to the settlement arrived at, the course
of the negotiations appears to have been extremely critical, and hence
the contradictory reports that emanated from the capital—the rumors of
war which alternated with assurances of peace. About the middle of
October the difficulty was in a fair way to be adjusted, but a few days
later, when the question of indemnity was broached, the understanding
partially arrived at came to nought. Okubo is reported to have suggested
an indemnity of five millions as the price at which the Japanese were
willing to retire from Formosa and acknowledge the sovereignty of China
over the whole island; and, on the rejection of this proposal, to have
next claimed a modified indemnity, and an acknowledgment that his
government was justified all through in the matter of the expedition.
This also the Chinese refused to concede, but they offered to pay Tls.
100,000 as compensation for the massacre of the Loochewans
[Page 407]
wrecked on their coasts. The
Japanese commissioner refused to listen to such an offer, and from the
unyielding attitude of both parties a rupture seemed inevitable. On
Saturday, the 24th October, both the commissioner and the minister
announced their intention of leaving Peking on the morning of Monday
following. General Le Gendre and a portion of the embassy started in
advance of the envoys, and on their arrival at Tien-tsin were not a
little puzzled to account for the non-appearance of the latter at the
expected time. On the 25th, however, Her Britannic Majesty’s minister,
Mr. Wade, had induced Okubo to put off his departure and make another
effort to arrange the matter amicably; and, after a week’s further
negotiations, the agreement which we stated at the outset was arrived
at, with Mr. Wade’s assistance.
[Inclosure 3 in No. 847.]
Settlement of the Formosan difficulty.
Shanghai, November 10,
1874.
[From the North China Daily News.]
Unimportant as is apparently the settlement of the late difficulty
between Japan and China on account of the insignificance of the sum
which the latter has agreed to pay the former, it is difficult to
overrate the value of the principle which China has been compelled to
yield to a power so comparatively inferior to itself. From whatever
point of view it is regarded, it is an admission that Japan was not only
right in the claims it had advanced, but that it was also right in the
mode which it took to enforce them; and this gives it a significance and
importance which we trust will not be lost sight of by the ministers of
foreign powers when seeking to enforce claims founded on similar
considerations from the Chinese government. Whether the indemnity which
is to be paid as the price of the evacuation of Formosa by the Japanese
is considered in the light of a compensation to the families of the
Loochewan crews murdered by the savages, in the light of a payment in
respect merely of the houses erected and the roads built in Formosa, or
in the light of a return of the expenses incurred by the Japanese in
connection with the expedition, it amounts to what we have before
stated, namely, an admission that the Japanese were right in what they
did, and the Chinese wrong in what they refused. Viewed as a measure of
compensation to the families, it is certainly in excess of any damage
sustained by them; as a mere quid pro quo for the
cost of the houses, &c., built, it may be an equivalent; as a
compensation for the general expenses of the expedition it is clearly
insufficient. Anyway, it may be taken, not so much as an equivalent for
the wrong done and the cost incurred in getting it repaired, as a
concession that the principle asserted by the Japanese was a sound one.
About the facts there can be no dispute; the events themselves are so
recent that they are within everybody’s memory. Some Lewchewan junks
were wrecked on the coast of Formosa, and their crews murdered by the
savages in the island. If that portion of the island did not belong to
China, there could, be no pretense for seeking an indemnity from China.
If such portion belonged to China, it was the duty of the provincial
government so to govern the savage inhabitants as to prevent the
perpetration of the wrong or punish the offenders. If the provincial
government was careless in the performance of so self-evident a duty, or
the central government had left it so powerless that it was unable to
perform this ordinary task, the central government was undoubtedly
liable to repair the wrong which the subjects of a friendly power had
sustained. This was the position assumed by the Japanese. The Chinese
government sought, as usual, to clear itself from all liability by a
simple denial of responsibility; and while on the one hand it asserted
its sovereignty, and declared the Japanese expedition to be an
infraction of that sovereignty, it denied the obligation which is a
necessary consequence of it. Such arguments and such logic had hitherto
prevailed with the diplomatic agents of the older civilized nations, but
the youngest was unable to see their force or application. The youthful
vigor of the younger civilization was of quite a different complexion to
the worn-out languor of the elder; hence it achieved success where in
other hands there would have been a certainty of failure. No doubt the
foreign ministers at Peking were thunderstruck at the presumption of
Japan. Like the early fathers of the Christian church, it was for them
and them only to explain impossibilities and reconcile contradictions.
Whatever they said, or thought, or wrote, however mistaken, was to be
considered the truth, and to be accepted as such. The Japanese had been
guilty of political heresy, as our Protestant forefathers were of
religious heresy. To their unsophisticated minds a wrong done was to be
redressed; and if the wrong-doer could be discovered, he was to pay the
penalty. Before this guiding principle, the doctrines of Confucius and
modern diplomacy fell prostrate to the ground; and the result, little
satisfactory as it may be in
[Page 408]
point of amount, is visible in the negotiations which have just
terminated. We sincerely trust that the lesson which Japan has taught
China will not be without its effect on the future bearing of foreign
ministers at Peking, for it shows what a little earnestness and firmness
may effect. Almost, if not all, the foreign claims on China, which are
pigeon-holed in the chanceries of the different legations in Peking,
which have been languidly urged, and for most unsatisfactory and puerile
reasons shelved, present exactly similar features with that which lay at
the bottom of the Japanese difficulty, namely, a wrong suffered and a
wrong unredressed. Thanks to the Japanese, the way has been now shown in
which such questions should be dealt with. A precedent has been created,
of which we trust that, in humble imitation of the youngest member of
civilized nations, the agents of the older nations will not be slow to
avail themselves; and although the amount paid is so small that it may
be apprehended the Chinese government will too soon forget the lesson
taught them, there can in future be no excuse for our representatives,
should they, as too often in times past, allow the settlement of a claim
to be lost sight of in interminable discussions whether central or
provincial government, or unattainable private individuals, should
properly be held responsible.
