Foreign Office to Otin, October 13, 1873

Foreign Office to Mr. Otin.

Prince Kung and the members of the foreign office herewith send a reply.

On the 9th instant we had the honor to receive your dispatch, in which you state:

“I now inclose for your examination the articles of an agreement, and if there be nothing to alter in them, we can sign and seal them; if there be certain parts which you wish to modify or alter, you can inform me, and at the same time [please] send a copy of the communications from the United States consul, and Mr. Low, the American minister, with it, for my use,” &c.

In regard to this, we may observe that, as you did not consider the declarations of the American minister and the United States consul in regard to the treatment of the coolies in Cuba and Havana to be supported by sufficient evidence, you then proposed that the question should be jointly discussed at a general meeting of all the foreign ministers. Thereupon they requested the Yamun to send a commissioner to Cuba, who could inquire into the facts; and you yourself urged that he should be appointed very soon, inasmuch as you were on the point of returning home.

We therefore, on the 21st ultimo, memorialized [the Throne] to this effect, that Can Lau-Pin, a brevet law-examiner in the board of punishment, of the 4th rank, should be appointed to proceed thither and inquire into the condition of the Chinese laborers, and that Messrs. Macpherson and Huber, two commissioners of the customs-service, be associated with him in this service. We were honored by his majesty’s rescript, “Let it be as requested;” which in due course was made known to your excellency and all the other foreign ministers. We also received their replies, as is on record.

Seeing that Chinese subjects are now employed abroad as laborers, it is proper that the Chinese government should send a commission to learn their condition; and in that case the members of the commission should take their own mode of learning the facts in the case, which they can then the better minutely report to the Yamun for its action. If this be not allowed, then the various statements on this point contained in the dispatches of Mr. Low and the United States consul must be regarded as reliable proof, and what need was there for the Chinese government in that case to send a special agent?

In what manner the question of the laborers in Cuba is to be acted upon must, of course, now remain in abeyance until this commission has returned and made its full report to the Yamun.

It is therefore unnecessary to take any deliberate steps with regard to the acceptance of the articles now offered by you; and, moreover, they do not altogether agree with what was decided upon at the conference held at the Russian legation on the 1st of August last.

The subjects discussed in the dispatches from the American minister and consul relate to the most important points touching the lives of our people; and they were all laid before you and the other ministers at the Russian legation last summer in the original documents. The dispatch from the consul, was also inclosed in a dispatch to Mr. Peyrera last year, so that it appears unnecessary now to make another copy of them for you.

This is the purpose for which this reply is now sent.

His Excellency F. Otin, Spanish Chargé d’affaires to China.