VAN BUREN, United States Consul-General to John A. Bingham , United States, May 11, 1875

Mr. Van Buren to Mr. Bingham.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your dispatch No. 153, under date 27th March last, requesting to be informed to what extent consuls in Yokohama have imposed new regulations by laws of their own enactment upon their countrymen in Japan, and especially by the consular board at Yokohama, to make laws, or regulations having the force of law, in reference to licenses, and whether this power is claimed by the consuls severally to have been conferred by their respective governments, and what is the form of their authority.

Immediately upon its receipt, I addressed communications upon the subject to the different consuls at Yokohama and the United States consuls at the other treaty-ports, and I inclose you herewith copies of such replies as have been received.

You will perceive that there is no system or code recognized by the consuls, even of the same nation, at the different ports, each apparently acting upon his own interpretation of his powers.

At Kanagawa (Yokohama) the diversity of views and claims among the consuls is so great as to make it utterly impracticable to agree upon anything like a common platform.

I inclose you a printed paper headed “convention,” and dated at Yedo, October 28, 1867, which appears to consist of seven different articles, recommended by the ministers of France, Great Britain, the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands, whose names are signed thereto, to the Japanese government, “as essential to insure the maintenance of order and health within the foreign settlement of Yokohama.”

These articles, I am informed, were ratified by the Japanese government, and Mr. E. S. Benson, an American citizen, was afterwards duly elected by the ballots of the foreigners in Yokohama “municipal director,” and has since continued in the position, exercising the powers conferred by the said convention.

By common consent the consuls issued licenses to certain of their countrymen to sell liquors at retail in the settlement, charging and collecting from each person so licensed the sum of $12 per month, which sum was paid over to the municipal director, to be used to defray the expenses of the foreign members of the police-force.

For a while this proceeding appeared to work well; but upon certain parties refusing to pay the license-fees, the consuls declined to enforce their collection, admitting their want of power in the premises, and the scheme fell to the ground. At present no licenses are issued. I have proposed to the board of consuls to recommend to the Japanese authorities the enactment of a law or ordinance regulating the licensing of dram-shops, leaving to the different consuls the enforcement of its provisions in their own way; but the proposition has met with no support, the consuls claiming that their countrymen cannot be compelled to submit to Japanese laws.

In the absence of any law upon the subject, I think that I should feel justified, as a police and sanitary measure, in regulating the sale of intoxicating liquors in this settlement, and would not hesitate to do so as regards our countrymen here, until otherwise ordered by my Government, if the other consuls would do likewise with their people.

As it is, we are living here in all respects in an anomalous condition, without definite laws or powers, and apparently without any legal relative duties or obligations.

Upon my application, a few months since, to the British consul, for the arrest of a British subject charged with having assisted in the escape of two notorious criminals from the jail of this consulate, I was informed, among other things, that English law provided no punishment in such case, because the jail was not British; and on a later occasion 1 was refused a subpoena for a British subject to appear as a witness in a legal proceeding pending in my court.

The police-force in Yokohama is composed of natives and a few foreigners. The inspector is a Japanese, and all are under the control of the governor of this ken, and are paid by the Japanese government. Arrests are made as by the police of the cities of Europe and America, but the arrested party, if a foreigner, is brought before the consul of his country for trial and sentence.

I have had occasion of late to protest against the arrest of citizens of the United States by members of the police, in cases where I considered it proper that a complaint should have been tiled at this consulate, and the accused arrested by warrant under my hand and official seal; and I have claimed that their right to arrest an United States citizen without such warrant was confined to an offense committed in their presence, or for a felony or breach of the peace, when the pursuit or capture occurred immediately after its commission.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,