The efforts of the United States to prevent hostilities were not successful, but the appeals of Korea and China and the kindly manner in which the intervention was received by Japan accentuated the high estimate by these three Asiatic powers of the disinterested policy of the American government. When the war was declared, a still further evidence of the confidence of these powers was shown in the request of Japan to intrust the archives and property of its legation and consulates and the interests of its subjects in China to the care of the United States minister and consuls, and in a similar request from China for a like service by the American minister and consuls towards the archives, property, and subjects of China in Japan. This service entailed a considerable amount of labor of a delicate and sometimes embarrassing character, but it was discharged cheerfully, gratuitously, and to the satisfaction of the two interested countries.[1]
Out of this service there arose during the war a case which attracted widespread attention and severe criticism of the American Secretary of State in certain quarters. Two Japanese youths were arrested in the French section of the foreign concession of Shanghai on the charge of being spies. They were by the French consul turned over to the custody of the American consul-general, on the ground that he had charge of the interests of Japanese subjects. The Chinese government demanded their surrender, which the consul-general
- ↑ For efforts at intervention, U. S. For. Rel. 1894, Appendix i. pp. 22–39. For good offices to Chinese and Japanese, U. S. For. Rel. 1894, pp. 95, 372.
