212                          FOREIGN     RELATIONS.

                                     PROTOCOL.
  The undersigned, prince and ministers of the Tsung-li-Yamun, and the charg6
d'af
faires for Spain, (M. Otin,) after having discussed the means of conciliating
the diffi-
culties between the governments of China and Spain, with regard to emigration
to
Cuba, have agreed to the following points:
  1st. The Chinese government will appoint a delegate to proceed to the island
of Cuba
to investigate the veracity of the facts denounced connected with Chinese
emigration.
This Chinese delegate shall be assisted in his investigation by two Spanish
delegates,
one from the foreign office, and one from the colonial office of Madrid.
   2d. The governments of China and of Spain will request the governments
of England,
Germany, France, Russia, and the United States, as mediating powers, to instruct
their
respective consuls or consuls-general at Havana to join the above-mentioned
Chinese
and Spanish delegates in their labors, forming altogether a mixed commission
of investi-
gation.
  3d. Tlhis commission shall draw up a report on the facts alleged and on
the general
condition of the Chinese in Cuba, according to the prevalent opinion, by
majority of
votes.
  4th. Pending the report of the commission, emigration by contract to Cuba
shall be
suspended; but it is clearly understood that if the said report shows that
the facts im-
puted were incorrect, the Chinese government shall at once re-establish emiigration
by
contract to the island of Cuba according to the regulations in force; and
shall further-
more pay to the government of Spain an indemnity for the losses and damages
that
Cuban land-owners and their agents might have sustained since January last
by the
prohibition.
  5th. The amount of such indemnity shall be fixed by common understanding,
by the
Tsung-li-Yamun and the Spanish legation in China,; and failing to agree,
the matter
shall be submitted to the representatives in Peking of the five mediating
powers.
  Done at Peking, October, 1873.



                         [Inclosure 2 in 8 in No. 9-Translation.]

                              Foreign Office to Mr. Otin.
                         TuNGCHI, 12th year, 8th moon., 22d day. (October
13,1873.)
  Prince Kung and the members of the foreign office herewith send a reply.
  On the 9th instant we had the honor to receive your dispatch, in which
you state:
"I now inatose for your examination the articles of an agreement, and
if there be
nothing to alter in them, we can sign and seal them'; if there be certain
parts which
you wish to modify or alter, you can inform mie, and at the same time [please]
send a
copy of the communications from the United States consul, and Mr. Low, the
American
minister, with it, for my use," &c.
  In regard to this, we may observe that, as you did, not consider the declarations
of
the American minister and the United States consul, in regard to the treatment
of the
coolies in Cuba and Havana to be supported by sufficient evidence, you then
proposed
that the question should be jointly discussed at a general meeting of all
the foreign
ministers. Thereupon they requested the Yamun to send a commissioner to Cuba,
who
could inquire into the facts; and you yourself urged that he should be appointed
very
soon, inasmuch as you were on the point of returning home.
  We therefore, on the 21st ultimo, memorialized [the Throne] to this effect,
that C.n
Lau-Pin, a brevet law-examiner in the board of punishment, of the 4th rank,
should be
appointed to proceed thither and inquire into the condition of the Chinese
laborers,
and that Messrs. Macpherson and Huber, two commissioners of the customs-service,
be
associated with him in this service. We were honored by his majesty's rescript,
"1 Let
it be as requested;" which in due course was made known to your excellency
and all
the other foreign ministers. We also received their replies, as is on record.
  Seeing that Chinese subjects are now employed abroad as laborers, it is
proper that
the Chinese government should send a commission to learn their condition;
and in that
case the members of the commission should take their own mode of learning
the facts
in the ease, which they can then the better minutely report to the Yamun
for its action.
If this be not allowed, then the various statements on this point contained
in the dis-
patches of Mr. Low and the United States consul must be regarded as reliable
proof,
and what need was there for the Chinese government in that case to send a
special
agent?
  In what manner the question of the laborers in Cuba is to be acted upon
must, of
course, now remain in abeyance until this commission has returned ned made
its full
report to the Yamun.                         ...