Russell Young to Prince Kung, October 13, 1882

Mr. Young to Prince Kung.

Your Imperial Highness: I have the honor to inform your imperial highness that I am in receipt of a communication from the vice-consul-general of the United States at Shanghai, setting forth the following facts in a case which it appears to be my duty to bring to your notice:

Some months since certain Americans and other foreigners established a company at Shanghai for the manufacture of cotton yarn. A large amount of capital was subscribed for the purchase of the requisite machinery and other requirements, when suddenly, just as the company was ready to begin operations, an apparently official notice appeared in a Shanghai Chinese newspaper, forbidding the organization of the company on the ground that a monopoly had been granted for this kind of work by his excellency the northern superintendent of trade, to a Chinese company.

The vice-consul-general at once brought the matter to the notice of the intendant of customs, who not only confirmed the notice which had appeared in the newspaper, but informed Mr. Cheshire that he had issued orders to certain Chinese who had invested their money in the company, prohibiting them from having anything to do with it. After repeated and unsuccessful efforts to induce the taotai to reconsider his action, the vice-consul-general has sought my intervention in the business.

After careful consideration of the facts in this case, I am forced to the conviction that the course taken by the customs intendant at Shanghai is not only contrary to a sound policy, but is also a plain violation of the rights secured to foreigners under the existing treaties with China.

Under the provisions of the French, Belgian, and other treaties, foreigners are expressly permitted to pursue their various avocations at all the ports open to foreign trade without hindrance or interference from the Chinese authorities. Merchants, artisans, professional men, and laborers are all free, each to follow his own vocation as though he were in his native land.

The meaning of this provision is clear beyond possibility of doubt, and it only need be referred to to prove the intendant of customs at Shanghai, in his action in the case tinder review, has violated a plain promise made in the treaties between your imperial highness and foreign powers.

But it is claimed that the action taken by your officer was based upon the assumption that the new company would interfere with a monopoly granted by the northern superintendent of foreign trade to a Chinese company already formed at Shanghai.

In answer to this assumption, I need only call the attention of your imperial highness to the universally recognized principle of international law, with which your imperial highness is doubtless entirely familiar, that treaties form the supreme law of the land in each of the two countries between which they are concluded, and that neither local regulations, nor even regulations of the supreme authority itself, can be allowed to curtail or contravene the privileges secured by them. Under this principle the monopoly referred to is void and of no effect, as it interferes with the treaty provisions mentioned above.

As your imperial highness is aware, a very large number of Chinese have established themselves in all parts of the United States in all kinds of manufacturing and mercantile pursuits, from which they have secured to themselves large profits. This has been done without interference or molestation on the part of either the local or general officers of my Government. Your imperial highness will assuredly be ready to grant to our people at the open ports in China the same privileges and opportunities which are freely accorded to Chinese subjects in all parts of the United States, and to which the people of either nation have under the treaties a perfect right.

I beg to call the early and serious attention of your imperial highness to this subject, with the hope that you will cause such orders to be sent to your subordinate at Shanghai as will prevent further interference on his part with the operations of the company referred to.

I have, &c.,