Prince Kung to S. Wells Williams, July 17, 1871
Prince Kung to S. Wells Williams.
Prince Kung, chief secretary of state for foreign affairs, herewith sends a reply.
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s dispatch of the 8th ultimo, in which you inform me that Mr. Brent, the United States charge d’affaires at Lima, had sent a second complaint, made to him by the Chinese laborers in Peru, of the harsh treatment they received there, and that you accordingly inclosed the original copy of this paper for my examination, and to devise such measures for their relief as might be possible. &c., &c.
In relation to this matter I may here refer to the former memorial from the Chinese laborers in Peru, setting forth the cruel treatment of their masters, which was made known to me by Mr. Ross Browne. I replied to him at the time, requesting that he would write to the American minister in Peru, asking him to kindly examine into the truth of these complaints, and to devise some way of lending the sufferers a helping hand. It was also ordered at the same time that no merchants of a non-treaty power should be allowed to open an office for hiring laborers, and all natives were prohibited from engaging themselves to such, or going to Macao for that purpose. These regulations were communicated to all the foreign ministers to transmit to their countrymen, so that all might know that no laborers could be engaged or sent off from Macao. In May of last year Mr. Low informed me that the American minister in Pern had represented the hardships experienced by the Chinese laborers to the government at Lima.
From these, as well as the dispatch from your excellency now before me, it is manifest how much the miserable condition of the Chinese laborers in Peru has moved the sympathies of the American officials there and here. Judging from these documents, and the reports given in the newspapers, it appears that in no country are these laborers treated with so much cruelty as in Peru, and they are secretly and illegally hired as coolies only in. Macao. It was plainly stated in the dispatch sent to the foreign ministers in June, 1869, which they were requested to make known to their countrymen that it was henceforth illegal to open emigration offices in Macao, and no coolies could be shipped from there. This was done in order to prevent Chinese subjects from being inveigled into such evils in future. Though there is every probability that those prohibitions were made known by the resident ministers to their consuls, yet the Foreign Office has deemed it advisable to send a copy of the dispatch now under reply to the governor general at Canton, that he may make known to the people at large that they are not to go to Macao to engage themselves as laborers; and if necessary, to reissue the rules forbidding foreign merchants to open emigration offices there. He has also been directed to confer with the consuls at Canton how to carry these things into effect.
In regard to the best method to alleviate the sufferings of these Chinese laborers, so that they may no longer he subjected to these troubles, I am at present deliberating, and shall expect to avail myself of your admirable suggestions in the matter.