Mr. Rockhill to Mr.
Hay.
No. 43.]
Commissioner of
the United States to China,
Peking, March 18,
1901.
Sir; The diplomatic corps in its meeting held
to-day devoted all its time to a desultory discussion of various points
relating to the report of the commission on indemnities, which it had
adopted ad referendum in its meeting of the 14th.
The British minister having proposed to the meeting that, following the
precedent of the Constantinople conference of 1896, the representatives
should submit to the conference pro forma the amounts
they proposed asking of China for each specific claim of their nationals,
and also the amount of their claim for war expenses, etc., the Austrian
minister offered as an amendment that they should submit only the total
amounts of each of the three categories of claims, i. e., state, companies
and societies, private individuals. I then suggested as a further amendment
that each power submit to the conference a lump sum covering all its claims,
governmental, companies and societies, and private ones. This amendment was
voted on, although at the last meeting the question had been reserved for
future consideration, most of the representatives being without
instructions. Six of the representatives, including France, Japan, and
Russia, were in favor of my amendment, but the ministers of Great Britain,
Germany, and Italy voted against it. Though the vote was an informal one,
which may not affect the final settlement of the question of the
presentation of the demand for indemnity to the Chinese Government, I deemed
it sufficiently interesting to mention it in my telegram to you of this
date.
I still believe a lump-sum indemnity will be asked, and that we will be able
to secure, in conformity with your wishes, a horizontal scaling down of the
claims to within China’s ability to pay.
On my motion, the conference fixed the 1st of May, subject to the approval of
their Governments, as the latest date at which private claims should be
filed here. This will, in my opinion, hasten the final presentation to China
of the indemnity demanded, though some of the powers seem embarrassed over
the question of the cost of future military occupation in calculating their
demand for war expenses.
I inclose herewith a translation of a letter from the Chinese
plenipotentiaries to the dean of the diplomatic corps, read by him at this
meeting, relating to the indemnification of Chinese residents in the
[Page 109]
proposed diplomatic quarter. The
draft of a reply was agreed upon by the representatives, and a copy thereof
is inclosed. The question of the diplomatic quarter seems likely to give a
great deal of trouble, and will not probably be settled for some time to
come, though in the meanwhile the various powers are busy building quarters
for guards, and new legations.
I have the honor, etc.,
[Inclosure No. 1, with dispatch No.
43—Translation.]
The Chinese
plenipotentiaries to Mr. de
Cologan.
We had the honor to receive on the 15th instant your communication with
reference to the execution of Article VII of the joint note.
(Quotes in extenso doyen’s note of March 15, 1901.)
In your communication of the 1st instant, transmitting a plan of the
proposed legation quarter, you made certain remarks on the subject of
the Chinese resident within its limits.
On receipt thereof we prepared and sent you a memorandum, in which we
stated that in the interest of justice steps must be taken to make good
to the Chinese resident in the legation quarter, who would be called
upon to move elsewhere, the value of their land and their expenses of
removal.
Now, what we meant thereby was that the Plenipotentiaries of the powers
themselves ought, as a matter of course, to take steps to provide for
any sums necessary to make good such claims. It is a fixed and abiding
principle that he who appropriates land for his own use must pay for the
same, and that he who calls on them to remove their dwellings must make
good the expenses of such removal. In the present instance, as the
legations wish to extend their boundaries, such Chinese as are resident
within these limits must move elsewhere, and, as in your former
communication it is stated that such area is reserved for the use of the
legations, it undoubtedly follows that the legations are responsible for
the payment of the value of the land thus appropriated. Further, as the
legations had called upon the present residents to quit, they put these
people to the expense of taking down their dwellings and reerecting
them, a process which is accompanied by inevitable loss of property and
damage of various kinds. These losses being the result of orders to
quit, the reimbursement thereof ought naturally also to be made by the
legations concerned.
It is now, however, proposed that the Chinese Government be asked to
provide funds for this purpose. Taking all the circumstances into
consideration we can hardly bring ourselves to believe that a proposal
of this kind is in accordance with equity.
As regards the request in the communication under acknowledgment, that an
officer be appointed to assist in the examination of title deeds and
assessment of values, this is of a truth a just and proper method of
procedure, and affords evidence of a really sincere desire to preserve
the interests of the proprietor from injury.
It is our duty in addressing to you this reply to beg you to consult with
the Representatives of the powers regarding the question of refunding to
the Chinese owners the value of their lands and expenses of removal,
with a view to securing an acknowledgment of the just principle that
each legation should itself take steps to provide the funds necessary
for the purpose.
When we shall have received your answer we will take into consideration
the appointment of a delegate to join the committee elected by the
diplomatic body.
[Seal of Chinese Plenipotentiaries.]
March 17, 1901.
[Translation.]
The Dean of the diplomatic
corps to the Chinese
plenipotentiaries.
Highness, excellency: In a note under date the
15th of March, I had the honor to request you to designate a delegate to
examine, with a commission named for that purpose by the representatives
of the powers, the validity of deeds to real estate
[Page 110]
owned by Chinese within the limits of the
future diplomatic quarter. I informed you that this commission and the
delegate you will choose would also have for duty to fix the value of
the lots to be expropriated, so as to settle the damages which the
Imperial Government would have to grant the owners of them.
You answered me on the 16th of this month that it belonged to the
legations to indemnify the Chinese who would be expropriated by them.
You pretended in that communication that the pulling down and
destruction of buildings which has been done in the diplomatic quarter
were imputable to the legations, as was also the moving away from it of
the inhabitants, who have been obliged to abandon their dwellings.
The events of last year are still too recent for it to be possible to
represent things in this light.
Why did the Emperor of China, in accepting the joint note, grant the
legations the right to put themselves in a defensive state, unless it
was because they had been invested and besieged for two months,
surrounded by regulars and Boxers, who pulled down several of them and
destroyed by fire the whole quarter surrounding them?
Who ignores that when the allied troops entered into Peking the whole
section of the city which the powers demand to establish their
diplomatic missions in had been mined and burned and was only a heap of
ruins, the work of Boxers and regulars?
It is the Chinese Government, declared responsible of these events by the
powers, and which has recognized itself as such in accepting their
conditions, that should bear the consequences of its conduct and to
supply to the diplomatic agents, to which it has a duty to insure, the
means of defense which it has rendered necessary in failing to keep its
first obligations. Among these means of defense figures in first line
the removing of the houses which served as a place of refuge to those
attacking the legations and the walls of which have shielded their
attacks against the representatives of the powers.
As, however, it would be unjust to deprive of their dwellings Chinese who
have no responsibility in the affair, and who would as a result be
victims of an event which they could not prevent, the diplomatic corps
proposes to you to fix with it the reasonable damages which “you will
have to pay the inhabitants who can show good titles to their
property.
The diplomatic corps can only insist on its demand, and my colleagues
direct me to beg you to designate, as soon as possible, the delegate who
will put himself in communication with the commission which it has
appointed.
