Mr. Hay to Mr. Wu.
Washington, October 30, 1901.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 213 of the 25th instant, inclosing, for the Department’s information, the translation of a dispatch addressed to you by His Excellency Liu Kun-Yih, viceroy at Nanking, relative to a recent rupture at Hsin-Chin between Chinese converts of the American Protestant mission and those of a Roman Catholic mission.
You express the hope that the foreign Governments concerned and the missionary societies will carefully consider the matter and accord to Chinese officials all possible cooperation in their efforts to promote and maintain peaceful and harmonious relations between Chinese chieftains of different sects, as well as between Christian and non-Christian Chinese.
In reply I have the honor to say that, in the absence of indication of the American missionary society of which the Protestant native mission at Hsin-Chin is an offshoot, the Department can at present do no more than communicate your note and its inclosure to the United States minister at Pekin for an investigation.
I very much regret the state of things disclosed by Viceroy Liu’s dispatch.
Accept, etc.,