F. F. Low to Señor Garcia, July 17, 1873
Mr. Low to Señor Garcia.
Sir: Referring to my dispatch to your excellency of the 5th instant, inclosing a copy of my letter to Prince Kung, which I trust you have already received, I have now the honor to send you a reply received from his Imperial Highness. In this dispatch yon will see that the Chinese government declines to enter at present into any negotiations with you as the representative of Peru, and base their reluctance wholly on what they have heard as to the treatment experienced by their countrymen in Peru. Though the high officers in Peking have probably no knowledge by personal inquiry among Chinese who have returned home, of the truth or otherwise of the rumors which are current in the southern provinces in respect to the condition of those laborers who have been taken to Peru during the past twenty-five years, still the documents referred to in Prince Kung’s dispatch, purporting to have been written from Lima, which were sent to him from this legation in 1869 and 1871, have furnished the statements, and done much to form the opinion upon which he now bases his reasons for declining to negotiate.
These representations have been strengthened by the fact that so few laborers have ever returned from Peru in comparison to the number who have gone there, and so little can be ascertained as to the actual condition of those still remaining.
Under these circumstances it would be an act of humanity befitting the dignity of a Christian nation to furnish the Chinese authorities with the most explicit and reliable information, so as to disabuse them of any erroneous impressions they may now have upon this matter. Their own opportunities for learning the truth are not many, and a full knowledge of the matter might initiate a free emigration to Peru, like that to Siam and the United States, or Australia, which would supply her with cultivators and artisans to a great extent.
The decided and rather curt tone of the prince’s reply will perhaps excite surprise, and is most reasonably accounted for by the present discussion upon the coolie emigration to Cuba with the Spanish chargé d’affaires.
I have, &c.,