Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 5, 1881

No. 174.
Mr. Blaine to Mr. Angell.

Department of State,
Washington, August 26, 1881.

No. 122.]

Sir: Your dispatch No. 174, of June 20 last, relative to the exclusive privileges which the Great Northern Telegraph Company are desirous of securing from China, has been received and read with interest and your action respecting the subject, is approved.

In addition to your forcible presenting of the case and the evils not unlikely to result from such a course as the one proposed, you may call the attention of the Chinese authorities to the fact that the granting of monopolies of any kind is not conducive to public interests, and endeavor to dissuade them from giving their assent to any contracts like the one mentioned in your dispatch.

I am, sir, &c.,

JAMES G. BLAINE.