[This Document is the Property of Her Britannic Majesty's Government.]
Printed for the use of the Foreign Office. November 1896.
CONFIDENTIAL.
Further Correspondence relating to the Question of Extradition with Japan.
[In continuation of Confidential Paper No. 6417.]
No. 1.
Sir E. Satow to the Marquess of Salisbury-(Received January 7, 1896.)
(No. 18. Treaty.) My Lord,
Tokió, December 5, 1895.
I have the honour to inclose a correspondence between myself and the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, respecting an application from the Governor of Singapore for the arrest and handing over of a British subject named Kam Quen Sean, who has absconded from that Colony, charged with the embezzlement of 100,000 dollars, belonging to his employers, the Netherlands Trading Company. In the note which I addressed to his Excellency I quoted the precedents set in 1889 and 1891, and without alluding to matters of controversy, inquired whether the Japanese Government would give instructions for the arrest of the individual, supposing him to have reached this country, and his detention in custody pending the arrival of a warrant and the completion of arrangements for his conveyance back to Singapore.
The answer of his Excellency states that the necessary instructions will accordingly be given, but that the measures to be taken being, in the absence of an Extradition Treaty between Great Britain and Japan, outside the scope of the Regulations for the extradition of fugitive offenders, must be regarded as an Act of State, and the Japanese Government are accordingly not desirous that the present case should be considered as a precedent in the future.
In the course of conversation the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs had informed me that as instances of this kind were now becoming frequent, the Japanese Government would prefer to conclude an Extradition Treaty of the usual character, and I promised his Excellency that I would report to your Lordship their desire to resume negotiations on this subject, which, after much discussion a few years ago, had been dropped.
I have perused the Confidential printed papers on this subject, dated April 1893, and venture to think that the force of the objections then entertained to the conclusion of an Extradition Treaty with Japan has been considerably diminished by the signature of the Treaty of Commerce and navigation of the 16th July last year. At the same time, as the new Treaty cannot come into operation for another three or four years, it seems desirable that provision should be made for matters in respect of which the stipulations of an ordinary Extradition Treaty could not be at present applied. These are the surrender of British subjects to be tried and punished in Japan by Japanese Courts, since as long as the present Treaty continues in force, they could only be tried in Japan by British Courts, and the surrender of subjects of a third Power.
I beg to suggest accordingly that if Her Majesty's Government think fit to enter
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