SUTTER, Consul to Thomas B. Van Buren, April 13, 1875

Mr. Turner to Mr. Van Buren.

Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch, No. 685, dated the 2d instant, making inquiry, at the request of the American minister, regarding the exercise of certain authority by the different consuls residing at Hiogo and Osaka. In reply, I would respectfully advise you that the British consul informs me that he claims the right “to make regulations having the force of law” in reference to licenses, &c., by the authority conferred upon all British consuls in Japan. (See art. 4 of a notification, dated April 4, 1862, published by Charles A. Winchester, H. B. M.’s chargé d’affaires and acting consul-general, and which reads as follows; “No British subject may establish within an open port in Japan either a boarding-house, eating-house, or other public house of entertainment, or a butcher’s house or slaughtering-house, without the sanction of the consul and under such regulations as he may require.”)

I inclose a copy of a letter from the acting German consul, to which is subjoined a translation of a law which apparently gives him the right to exercise a limited authority of the nature you describe.

The Belgian, Dutch, Hawaiian, Swiss, and American consuls claim no special privileges in this respect. The Portuguese and Danish, consuls are, I regret, absent from Hiogo, and, in consequence, I am unable to give you any information as to the limitation of their privileges.

The consular board claim no especial privileges in this respect over individual consuls.

The general “police and municipal regulations” of Hiogo and Osaka are made by the municipal council of each settlement, and with the consent of the consuls, each of whom occupies a seat in both councils.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,