Their excellencies Pao and Li to the commissioners, October 7, 1880

Their excellencies Pao and Li to the commissioners.

Upon the 1st instant your excellencies left with us at the foreign office a memorandum upon certain treaty modifications. We have carefully considered it, and beg to submit a note in response. We shall he glad to hear how it strikes your excellencies.

A few days since the full powers of the, commissioners plenipotentiary on either side were mutually inspected. We presume your excellencies have had a translation of our full powers made and have sufficiently examined them. We have submitted yours to the Prince, and now beg to return them herewith. Will you be so good as to receive them and to return ours to this office at your convenience?

Upon the 1st instant your excellencies came to, the foreign office and personally handed to us a minute upon certain treaty modifications. We have given this paper our careful consideration. The objective point of its several sections is a discussion in a friendly spirit which shall result in mutual benefit, and shall be free from harm to either party.

China and the United States have been on friendly terms from the first. But from the ratification of the Burlingame treaty a decided strengthening in our relations of amity has been seen.

The people of either country have passed to and from the other, and have never failed to receive all the benefits, privileges, and immunities guaranteed to them by the treaties. To refer, for example, to the Chinese laborers in California: Their number certainly is not small. Being from a race of dwellers upon the sea-coast, they have desired to go thither, and have regarded California as a land of abundance and as furnishing great opportunites. They have also rejoiced in the freedom of the United States. Hence they have not gone there as the result of deceit, or by being kidnapped, nor under contract as coolies, but have flown thither as the wild geese fly.

In the many years of Chinese emigration to California a hundred lines of enterprise have arisen, and commercial activity has developed to an immense extent. The Chinese have given a large amount of their labor to your people, and the benefits of that labor to your country have certainly not been few. But now, because the Chinese do good work for small remuneration, the rabble are making complaints. Since the amount paid to the laborer is small, the employer is able to save more, and hence the benefit still inures to the citizen of the United States. This would seem to t>e fair reasoning the world over.

Last year the Congress of the United States passed an act restricting the immigration of Chinese, which the President of the United States vetoed. This year there has also been discriminative legislation against them, which the courts have declared unconstitutional, and hence invalid. Some time since Mr. Seward handed to us the report of Senator Morton upon Chinese immigration, in which he held that it would certainly be wrong to restrict the coming of the Chinese. He quoted the Constitution of the United States adopted at the establishment of the government, which declares: “Our territory is broad and our people few in number. People of all nations shall be permitted to come to our land without let or hinderance.” He also quoted the Burlingame treaty, which declares that the people of either country shall be permitted to go freely to the other, either with the purpose of residing permanently there, and of becoming citizens or subjects, or temporarily; that they shall go voluntarily and shall not be hindered.

These statements, both official and personal, are all to the point. If now because of temporary competition between the Irish and stranger guests a decision is lightly taken to change the policy of the government, contradiction with the Constitution of the United States and existing treaties cannot be avoided.

Since the establishment of treaty relations between the two countries, citizens of the United States in China have not been relegated to the jurisdiction of the Chinese authorities. China has accorded this privilege to the United States. Chinese subjects have been permitted to go and come at their pleasure. The United States has granted this concession to China. At the ratification of this treaty the people of both sides of the Pacific Ocean leaped, shouted, and clapped their hands with joy and pleasure, friendly relations were firmly established, divisions were obliterated, the people could come and go as they chose, and the governments only heeded the wishes of the people. All this was eminently just and honorable in the highest degree to the United States. This being so, when other powers were exceedingly urgent in their need of Chinese labor, and desired this government to allow its subjects to go of their own free will, this government, because those other powers treated the Chinese laborer harshly and not with the kindness shown them by the United States, could not do otherwise than take this difference into consideration.

Hence the facts which resulted in the stipulation referred to in the Cuban convention are unlike the circumstances in the United States, and your government should not look upon that stipulation as a satisfactory rule of action. In a word, there are Chinese who go to the United States as merchants and traders, and there are also Chinese who go there as laborers. Formerly, when there was a demand for these laborers, the only fear was that they would not go thither; and now, because of the influence of violent men, there exists a desire that they stay away.

In consideration of the permanent friendship between the two countries, it is believed that the United States by no means entertains this idea. But as the number of Chinese laborers in California is daily increasing there cannot but be abuses. This is manifestly true. Hence, last year the foreign office consented to enter upon negotiations with Mr. Seward to prohibit the four classes of cooly laborers, criminals, prostitutes, and diseased persons from going thither.

Since now your excellencies desire to discuss this business further with us, we are ready to discuss further the proposition of Mr. Seward, with the hope that an equitable solution may be reached, and that the purpose of avoiding difficulties and securing beneficial results may not be lost sight of on either side, provided always that such negotiations shall not be contrary to the stipulations of the Burlingame treaty.

We are by no means unalterably fixed in our views.