Note 583 — Chapter XVIII · THE RUSSO-JAPANESE NEGOTIATIONS, I

The Nichi-Ro Kōshō ni kwan su ru Ōfuku (diplomatic correspondence respecting the negotiations between Japan and Russia), dispatch No. 1. This correspondence (hereafter abbreviated as N.-R.) was presented by the Japanese Government to the Houses of the Imperial Diet, respectively, on March 23 and 26, and published in the Kwampō (Official Gazette) of March 24 and 27, 1904. It contains fifty-one dispatches, all telegraphic, covering the period of more than six months between the opening of the negotiations and the severance of all diplomatic relations between the two Powers, namely, between July 28, 1903, and February 6, 1904.

An authoritative English translation of this correspondence has been issued from Washington, probably by members of the Japanese Legation there. In the quotations from the correspondence that appear in these pages, the language of the translation—accurate as it is—has been largely changed, in order to make it coincide as closely as possible with the literal meaning of the original.