to avoid the grip of justice in their own-in other words, real criminals are permitted to land without molestation, while those who have served out their time and can no longer be considered as convicts are debarred from doing so. Of the immigrants who recently arrived by the steamer Marthe, twenty-eight, together with five who had arrived by the Cachar, were for the above reason detained at Castle Garden; of these, twenty-four, who had served terms of not more than one month each, were allowed to land, owing to the representations made by our immigration society; the others are to be sent back to Italy. RAFFO. No. 728. Mr. Bayard to Baron de Fava. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 17th ultimo, inclosing copy of a note from the Italian consul-general at New York, protesting against what he believes to be an erroneous interpretation by the collector of that port of the immigration act of 1882, in that he holds the term "convict " to be applicable to those who have served out their sentences of imprisonment. A copy of your note has been transmitted to the Treasury Department, and I have now the honor to state that I am informed by the Secretary of the Treasury that that Department has uniformly held that an immigrant, previously convicted of a criminal offense, does not cease to be a convict within the meaning of the term as used in the act above-mentioned when he completes the term of his imprisonment. It thus appears that the ruling of the collector, which was called in question, was in accordance with the unbroken course of decisions of the Treasury Department. Washington, August 2, 1888. (Received August 6.) Mr. SECRETARY OF STATE: In compliance with the repeated requests of the population of Zoula, to the south of Massowah, which has until now been under the Egyptian flag, although occupied by our irregular troops, the Italian flag has just been hoisted in that locality by a detachment of marines, and an Italian protectorate has been formally established there and proclaimed in the name of the King's Government. This protectorate, which has been unanimously approved by the local sheik and the population, is nothing new. It is the official confirmation of a pre-existing state of things. Irregular troops in our service, and sometimes even regular troops, have successively occupied Zoula, evidence of actual possession of which has never been furnished by any other power either before or since the "acte général" of the Berlin Conference of February 26, 1885. H. Ex. 1, pt. 1- -67 In notifying the United States Government of the foregoing, in pur suance of the instructions of my Government and of article 34 of the aforesaid conference, I have the honor to beg your excellency to be pleased to take note of this communication, and to acknowledge its receipt. Be pleased to accept, etc., No. 730. FAVA. Mr. Bayard to Baron de Fava. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of 2d instant, in which, by order of your Government, you announce to the Government of the United States, according to the terms of article 34 of the Berlin Conference of 26th February, 1885, the establishment of an Italian protectorate over Zoula, south of Massowah, Africa; and to say in reply that until the United States shall, by subsequent accession and ratification of the general act of the Conference of Berlin, in the manner therein provided, become a party to the stipulations thereof, it will be impossible to determine the due and proper weight to be given by this Government to the announcement made in your note. Accept, etc., T. F. BAYARD. No. 394.] JAPAN. No. 731. Mr. Hubbard to Mr. Bayard. [Extract.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Tokio, Japan, October 10, 1887. (Received November 2.) SIR: I beg to respectfully call your attention and careful reading of the inclosed leading editorial which I have taken from the August number, 1887, of The Australasian and South American, a representative commercial journal and of marked influence in diplomatic and consular circles (and "devoted to the extension of commerce between the United States and Canada and Australasia, South Africa, South America and India, China and Japan, etc."), under the head of "Our trade with China and Japan." While the present status of that trade is in the main correctly stated, yet it is due to truth and candor to say that the writer of the article misleads, unintentionally, no doubt, as to matters of fact, when speaking of our volume of trade with these countries that-We are unmeasurably distanced alike by Germany and Great Britain, both of which countries look upon China and Japan as the most important fields for the development of their vast foreign commerce. The statistics of the customs annual return for 1886 show, to use round numbers, that the aggregate export and import trade between the United States and Japan was over twenty-three millions of yen as against twenty-one millions between Great Britain and her colonies and Japan, and three millions between Germany and Japan, facts which I had the honor in my dispatch No. 346 to the Department of State to present fully by figures and tables in connection with a review of the annual trade of Japan with all countries for 1886. It is true Great Britain's exports to Japan are largely in excess of the exports from the United States to this country, but the gratifying fact was made manifest in the trade returns for 1886 that the American export trade had increased during that year over 1885 nearly a million dollars in value. As to Germany, the entire sum total of her exports and imports is less than four millions, nearly twenty millions less than that of the United States with Japan. As to the other obstacles and disadvantages to our more enlarged commercial progress in this country, mentioned by the writer of the article inclosed, they are stated with force and fact, and deserve to be earnestly studied and heeded by our Countrymen who propose extending our trade in the East with steady steps against all competitors. The hopeful horoscope cast by the same intelligent writer for the future of our trade relations in Japan and China, is not without sound support in reason. I have, etc., RICHARD B. HUBBARD. [Inclosure in No. 394.] OUR TRADE WITH CHINA AND JAPAN. The past few years have witnessed a very material increase in our trade with China and Japan, and present indicatious would appear to promise that within a reasonable time our commerce with both countries may attain something near the value it ought to possess. The most important feature of the increased trade returns, however, is to be found in the character of our exports to these markets, their variety having been extended in a manner that is particularly gratifying as affording the best proof of the growing extent to which the people of China and Japan are becoming familiar with our productions. After all, however, when we come to compare the volume of our business with the value of the trade other nations enjoy with China and Japan, we have but little cause for satisfaction. We are unmeasurably distanced alike by Germany and Great Britain, both of which countries look upon China and Japan as among the most important fields for the development of their vast foreign commerce. There are two principal causes for the backward state of our trade with China and Japan, and we may profitably devote a little space to their consideration. In the first place, we find the same obstacle to our commercial progress in these countries that we have so often called attention to in speaking of our trade with other markets, viz, far too little attention is bestowed on the introduction of our goods, which are almost expected to sell themselves. In nearly any part of the world, except in China and Japan, we might look for business growing out of the opportunities offered buyers by means of trade, literature, advertising, etc. There is little to be done in either of the above countries through such factors. Chinese and Japanese merchants are notoriously keen buyers; they not only want to know the lowest prices and discounts obtainable on any line of goods, the best terms of credit, etc., obtainable, but in nine cases out of ten they want to satisfy themselves, by personal inspection, of the character of the articles they are purchasing. This is only natural. Their customers, for the most part, cherish deep-rooted preferences for certain forms, patterns, and styles in goods of their own or foreign manufacture, and they will not tolerate any deviation from the often arbitrary standard they have established. It is only the native buyer who thoroughly understands what is needed for the market he sup plies, and his orders, as received by the resident representative of the foreign manufacturer or merchant, must be minutely observed. Comparatively few American houses have taken the trouble to establish direct commercial relations with China or Japan through firms located in these countries, and the consequence is that their facilities for meeting the requirements of the market are inadequately realized, even by those who would willingly patronize American productions. England, Germany, and France are represented at the principal ports of entry by numerous mercantile houses and secure in consequence the bulk of a profitable and rapidly increasing trade. The second disadvantage under which we labor in the development of our trade with both China and Japan is the lack of active support our merchants receive from the agents of our Government in these countries. England and Germany have made it their business to adopt every possible means to secure the personal favor and goodwill of Chinese and Japanese officials, and their rivalry in this direction leads them to discredit the efforts of other nations to obtain a footing in these markets. Agents of these Governments resort to every practice in their power, honest and otherwise, to decry competing influences and competition, even to the extent of belittling the business methods and progressive tendencies of the Chinese and Japanese merchants, and the various journals they control render them valuable assistance in this course. The effect of their action on the foreign commercial and diplomatic relations of both countries is in a high degree detrimental to their advancement, and is plainly proven by the extraordinary favors shown to this or the other nation, according to the influence its representatives are able to exercise in official circles. As an instance, we may refer to the large orders the Japanese Government has recently placed for steel rails in Europe. Half the contract has gone to English firms at £4 118.; the other half has been taken by Germans, not at £4 118., but at £5 68. The rails are to be delivered free on board in London and Antwerp respectively. The difference of 158. per ton represents in this case, says a writer in Iron, a free gift of about £19,000, presented by the Japanese Government to the German manufacturers. Of the motives for this gift, whether gratitude for favors past or to come, the English journal naturally knows nothing, but remarks: "British manufacturers can not be blamed for failing to secure business in the face of favoritism." It adds, somewhat ill-naturedly : "A conviction is fast spreading abroad that the Japanese Government and people are so fickle in their friendship and so unreliable in their commercial dealings that they are not worth taking the trouble to please." It is gratifying to American independence to know that what trade we enjoy with China and Japan has been built up entirely on the merits of our productions, and is not likely to be jeopardized by misrepresentations or such special pleadings as government agents are able to offer. In Japan, especially, the course adopted by our minister has created an excellent feeling in our favor in commercial circles, the most influential papers commenting frequently on the desirability of closer mercantile relations between Japan and the United States. In China much the same feeling prevails, except that the effect of our restrictive legislation against Chinese immigration and the bad treatment Chinese subjects have received in some parts of the country still weigh against us. That these adverse influences, provided their cause is not renewed, will ultimately disappear there is little room to doubt, and, with the progressive tendencies both China and Japan are at present exhibiting, American commercial enterprise, exerted in the right direction, is certain to develop the many and profitable opportunities for trade that these important markets afford. No. 409.J No. 732. Mr. Hubbard to Mr. Bayard. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Tokio, November 28, 1887. (Received December 22.) SIR: I have the honor and sincere gratification to invite the attention of the Department of State to the inclosed editorial of the leading and most influential native daily journal in Japan, the Jiji Shimpo, upon the present relations of American and Japanese trade. I have had occasion heretofore to forward to your Department the able and friendly exhortations of this influential editor and statesman to his countrymen and Government to encourage, more than is now or has been done, the imports from the United States to Japan. For two years past the columns of this widely-circulated journal have been largely devoted to giving, from official statistics, the status of the Japanese-American trade, and the business reasons, based on immemorial rules of international exchange of products in commerce, why the balance of trade should not remain, as now, against the United States. That these discussions by such a man, who enjoys rightfully the confidence and the great respect of his Government, have awakened the Japanese, especially the Japanese mercantile and commercial public, to an earnest consideration of his views, is admitted on all sides, and by no one more cheerfully than the United States diplomatic representative at this court. Inquiries made at this legation by private native capitalists of Japan, proposing to engage in building railways under Government charters, or merchants engaged in the silk or tea trade and who fear that unless a more friendly return for our nineteen millions of imports which are purchased in Japan is inaugurated that the lex talionis might be invoked and silk and tea be made to pay duty (as they do not now) to American customs-these inquiries, I repeat, often referring to the Jiji Shimpo, and seeking my own views as to their truth in this connection, have convinced me that largely to this native journal we owe the recent increase of exports from the United States to Japan of over $500,000 in 1886 over what it was in 1885, and the aggregate increase of both our exports and imports to twenty-three millions, being three millions more than Great Britain's exports and imports (from and to Japan) including all her colonies. In my intercourse with this remarkably able and progressive man (Mr. Fukuzana), whose biography may be found in "Lanham's Leading Men of Japan," I am gratified to recognize a bold and intelligent ally, who, with open hand and earnest integrity and for no mere favoritism of the courtier, but from convictions of justice to Japan |
