Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1888 — JOHN MUST NOT COME. [ARTICLE]

JOHN MUST NOT COME.

THE PRESIDENT SIGNS THE CHINESE BILL—HIS MESSAGE. , China’s Demand for Renewed Discussion of the Whole Question Considered Unreasonable—Reasons for Approving the Measure. The President’s message announcing his approval of the Chinese exclusion bill was sent to Congress Oet. 1, and was referred to the respective Committees on Foreign Belations of the two houses. The President begins by reciting that the | fact that both countries have for so me time j been convinced of the failure of blending the social habits and race idiosyncrasies of the laboring classes of China with those of the United Btates, and that the treaty of 1880. allowing the United States to regulate, limit, or suspend the coming of Chinese laborers, and the act of Congress of 1862 suspending such immigration for ten years, have both been defeated in their object by the parties who were trading in Chinese labor. These parties, by false pretense and perjury, successfully evaded the terms of both treaty and statute, contrary to the expressed will of both Governments. The actual condition of public sentiment and the status of affairs in the United States having been fully made known to the Government of China, that Government in August. 1886, notified our Minister at Pekin that China, of her own accord, proposed to establish a system strictly and absolutely prohibiting her laborers, unde* heavy penalties, from coming to the United States, and likewise prohibiting the return to the United States of any Chinese laborer who had at anytime gone back to China, “in order [in the words of the communication}; that the Chinese laborers may be gradually reduced in number and causes of danger* averted and lives preserved.” This proposal was ingrafted into the treaty which was approved by the representatives of the two Governments on March 12 last. The treaty was confirmed by the Senate on May 7, with two amendments, which were approved by the Chinese Minister, as they did not alter the terms of the treaty. The message then refers to the act to prohibit the coming of Chinese laborers to the 1 United States, which was signed Sept. 13, “in the confident anticipation of an early exchange of ratifications of the treaty," and 1 continues: “No information of any definite action upon the treaty by the Chinese government was received until the 21st ult., the day the bill which I have just approved was presented to mo, when a telegram from our Minister at Pekin to the Secretary of State announced the refusal of the Chinese government to exchange ratifications of the treaty unless further discussion should be had with a view to shorten the period stipulated in the treaty for the exclusion of Chinese laborers, and to change tho conditions agreed on which should entitle any Chinese laborer who might go back to China to return again to the United States. “By a note from the charge d’affaires ad interim of China to the Secretary of State, received on the evening of the 25th ult. (a copy of which is herewith transmitted, to-, gether with the reply thereto), a third' amendment is proposed whereby the certificate, under which any departing Chinese? laborer alleging the possession of property in the United States would be enabled to' return to this country, should be granted' by the Chinese consul instead of the United States collector as had been provided in the treaty. “The obvious and necessary effect of this last proposition would be practically to; place the execution of tho treaty beyond the control of the United States.” The message says that the provisions of l the treaty which China desires to modify were settled agreeably to tho request of the Chinese plenipotentiary or originated with the Chinese Government itself. Tho President continues: “The admitted and paramount right andi duty of every Government to exclude from its borders all elements of foreign population which for any reason retard its pros-, perity or are detrimental to the moral and physical health of its people must be regarded as a recognized canon of international' law and intercourse. China herself has not descended from this doctrine, but has, by the expressions to which I have led us confidently to rely upon such action 1 on her part in co-operation with us as would! enforce the exclusion of Chinese laborers’ from our country. “This co-operation has not,however, been accorded us. Thus from the unexpected and disappointing refusal of the Chines* Government to confirm the acts of thorized agent and to carry into effect an international agreement, the main feature of which was voluntarily presented by that Government for our acceptance, and which had been the subject of long and careful deliberation, an emergency has arisen in which the Government of the United States is called upon to act in self-defense by the exercise of its legislative powers. I cannot but regard the expressed demand on the part of China for a re-examination and renewed discussion of the topics so completely covered by mutual treaty stipulations as indefinite postponement and practical abandonment of the objects we have in view to whioh the Government of China may justly be considered as pledged. “The facts and circumstances which I have narrated lead me, in the performance of tvhat seems to me to be my official duty, to join the Congress in dealing legislatively with the question of the exclusion of Chinese laboi ers, iu lieu of further attempts to adjust it by international agreement." In conclusion the President recommends that provision be made by which suoh Chinese laborers as are now actually on their return to the United States, and have certificates legally obtained, shall be permitted to land. He also recommends the appropriation of the amount named in the rejected treaty ($276,619.75) to indemnify certain Chinese subjects for damages suffered through violence in the remoto and •/emparatively unsettled portions of our couLtry.