Randall L. Gibson to Rollin M. Daggett , United States, December 19, 1883

Mr. Gibson to Mr. Daggett.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s dispatch of 13th instant, replying to mine of the 10th, and restating the views of your Government that the arrangement existing between His Majesty’s Government and the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and that which it is contemplated to make with the Oceanic Steamship Company, for the purpose of the regulation of immigration of Chinese laborers into this Kingdom, is repugnant to treaty obligations existing between the United States and this country.

Your excellency refers to the arrangement with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which was a permission revokable at will, as one of binding obligation, and speaks of the recall of a temporary permission, after giving due notice, as a “breach of contract.” This arrangement or permission, which is contained in a letter of which I annex a copy (the only authoritative assurance on the subject given to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company), will not, I feel assured, bear such a construction; and I respectfully submit to your excellency that in this matter there has been no agreement or mutual obligation entered into between two contracting parties, and consequently no breach of contract. If the phrase “breach of contract” were admissible in connection with this matter, it would have to be read the other way, since the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, after making frequent application to His Majesty’s Government for leave to bring Chinese laborers into the Kingdom, and promising to do so, have failed to bring any, notwithstanding permission to do so of long standing.

There is one point to which your excellency recurs on several occasions, which I think should have no place in the discussion, and that is an alleged probable transfer to a line of English steamers of privileges which are said to be conceded by His Majesty’s Government to the Oceanic Steamship Company. I append herewith copy of the letter to the Oceanic Steamship Company which is the sole warrant or authority for a supposed transferable contract, agreement, or concession from the Government to the company, and I think your excellency will agree with me that the permission assured in this letter is in no sense a negotiable “franchise.” Now, insomuch as the Pacific Mail Steamship Company hold at this time a privilege exactly similar to that which has, under conditions, been promised to the Oceanic Steamship Company, no one should know better than the managers of the former company that the privilege they hold is not of a nature to be transferred. A complaint, therefore, from them about an alleged disposition or purpose on the part of the Oceanic Steamship Company to transfer or barter away an identical privilege or permission, is not a complaint against this Government, and should have no place in the discussion of the international question which your excellency brings forward.

In general reply upon the gravamen of the question as presented by your excellency, I have the honor to say that His Majesty’s Government recognize that the regulation of immigration, especially of the immigration of Chinese male laborers, into this Kingdom, is a measure of vital national importance, and that such regulation is not repugnant to any treaty obligation, and this I am satisfactorily assured by your excellency is the view of the Government of the United States. Now, the method which has been selected for the exercise of this right cannot be called in question unless it can be clearly shown that it contravenes the actual covenants of a treaty. It is entirely in connection with immigration that the discrimination complained of has been made, and for the purpose of controlling the sanitary conditions of such immigrations.

The circumstances that must regulate immigration in the case of Hawaii are extremely different from those which obtain in the United States, where vast territories still wait to be peopled. It is necessary very closely to control the immigration to this country, both as to its character and its numbers, and this is more especially the case in regard to the influx of Chinese. For a while an immigration of Chinese, composed almost exclusively of men, assumed the character of an invasion, and His Majesty’s Government found it necessary to put a stop to it peremptorily. Subsequently evidence was submitted that the Chinese laborers whose engagements on our plantations had expired were returning to their own country at the rate of about two thousand annually, and His Majesty’s Government then decided to permit a limited and regulated immigration of about six hundred Chinese laborers every three months, calculated to replace those that were leaving. In the exercise of their right His Majesty’s Government selected the persons who should be allowed to manage this immigration of Chinese laborers, as it has done in the case of the immigration of laborers and settlers of other nationalities.

The Government has not for several years past deemed it wise to create establishments of its own in other countries for the selection of immigrants, but has from time to time empowered responsible persons to make suitable selection, and to provide for the transportation of immigrant passengers to these islands, under engagements or otherwise, as the case might be, and with free passages or otherwise. In this manner large numbers of people have been brought here from the Portuguese dominions, from Germany, Norway, and the islands of the Western Pacific.

Circumstances to which I have already alluded have shown the imperative necessity for placing the immigration of Chinese upon the same footing. The arrangements that have been made to secure this end are entirely similar in their character to those by which other immigration has been conducted. In selecting influential corporations like the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and the Oceanic Steamship Company to conduct this immigration, His Majesty’s Government have been actuated by the same motives as guided them in the choice of agents who have managed other immigrations, viz, the desire to deal with responsible persons who have too much at stake to misconduct the work intrusted to them, and who will comply with the wishes of this Government in all such matters as the numbers to be brought, the arrangements to be made with the immigrants, and the sanitary precautions to be taken on the voyage and on arrival.

I respectfully submit to your excellency that such arrangements made for the regulation and control of immigration are entirely within the rights of this Government. It is no favor, privilege, or immunity in connection with the ordinary course of commerce and navigation, but an arrangement made by the Government for the conduct and management of affairs which belong exclusively to the domestic interests of the Kingdom. I cannot understand how such discrimination in the carrying out of a national measure of vital importance can be regarded as a violation of treaty obligation. If such were the case, a certain discrimination, heretofore deemed properly warranted, such as the payment of subsidies to steam vessels belonging to United States citizens which trade to our ports, and compete with the sailing vessels, equally the property of Americans, which receive no subsidy, must be regarded as in contravention of treaty obligations; and, pursuing the inference to its just conclusion, so might any contract made by this Government for the transport of cargo the property of the Government be regarded as a discrimination not warranted by treaty.

I beg to say in conclusion that His Majesty’s Government have not made a contract or granted a franchise in connection with Chinese immigration capable of being subject to transfer or barter; that they claim the right to regulate measures taken for the repopulation and industrial development of the Kingdom; and I respectfully submit that the views on the question presented by your excellency, and in which you invite His Majesty’s Government to coincide, have been entertained and brought forward under a misconception of the nature of the arrangements entered into and of the circumstances which have guided the action of the Government. I hasten, however, to give the assurance to your excellency that His Majesty’s Government, recognizing the fairness and impartiality of the Government of the United States in the treatment of international questions, is anxious to meet the views of your Government, and will, on being convinced that its action even implies the infraction of any article of a treaty with the United States, at once take such steps as wall obviate the fact or the implication.

I have, &c.,