Show THE CHINESE BILL i Signed by President Cleveland Becomes Law DELIVERED WTH A MESSAGE Recommendation on IndemnityPro pooa to Permit Thus Who Have Already Sailed to Land The Presidents message WASIIINGTON October IThe President Presi-dent sent the following message to Congress today I have this day approved the House bill supplementary to an act entitled An Act to Execute Certain Treaty Stipulations Relating to the Chinese approved the Gh day of May 1882 It seems to me that some suggestions sugges-tions and recommendations may properly pro-perly accompany my approval of this bill The object is to more effectually accomplish by legislation the exclusion from this country of Chinese laborers The experiment of blending the social habits and mutual race idiosyncrasies of the Chinese laboring classes with those of the great body of the United States has been proved by an experience experi-ence of twenty years and ever since the Burlingame treaty of 1868 to be in every sense unwise impolitic and injurious to both nations With the lapse of time the necessity for its abandonment has grown in force until those having in charge the government of the respective countries have resolved to modify and sufficiently abrogate all those features of prior arrangements ar-rangements which permitted the coming com-ing of Chinese laborers to the United States In the modification of prier conventions the treaty of November 17 1880 was concluded whereby in the first artico thereof it was agreed that the United States should at will regulate regu-late limit or s spend the coming of Chinese laborers 10 the United States but not absolutely prohibit it and under this article an act of Congress approved on May 6th 1882 amended July 5h 1884 suspended for ten years the coming com-ing of Chinese laborers to the United States and regulated it to the going and coming of such Chinese laborers as at that time were in the United States is was however soon made evident that the mercenary greed of the parties who were TRADING IN LABOR of this class of Chinese population was proving too strong for the lust execution execu-tion of the law and that the virtual defeat de-feat of the object and intent of both law and treaty was being fradulently ec complishjd by false pretense and perjury per-jury contrary to tne expressed will of botn governments To such an extent has the successful violation of the treaty i and laws enacted for its execution progressed pro-gressed that the courts in the Pacific States have been for some time past overwhelming by the examination of cases of Chinese laborers who are charged wi h having entered our ports under fradulent certificates of return or seek to establish by perjury the claim of I prior residence Such demonstrations of the imperative and inefficient condition con-dition of the treaty and law has produced pro-duced deepseated and increasing discontent dis-content among the people of the United States and especially with those resident on the Pacific Coast This has induced me to omit no etlort to find an effectual remedy for the evils complained of and to answer the earnest popular demand for the absolute exclusion of Chinese laborers having objects and purposes unlike our own and wholly disconnected discon-nected wih American citizenship Aided by the presence in this country of able and intelligent diplomatic and consular officers of the Chinese government govern-ment and representatives made from time to time by our Minister in China under instructions of the Department of State the condition of public sentiment senti-ment and the status of affairs in the United States has been fully known to the governmeht of China THE NECESSITY FOR A REMEDY has been fully appreciated by that government gov-ernment and in August 18SG our Minister Min-ister at Peking received from the Chinese Chi-nese foreign office a communication announcing that China of her own accord proposed to forma form-a strict and absolute system of prohibition of her laborers under heavy penalties from coming to the United States likewise to prohibit the return to the United States of Chinese laborers who had at any time been back to China in order in the words of the communication that Chinese laborers may be gradually reduced In number and the causes of danger averted and lives preserved This view of the Chinese Chi-nese governmentfso completely harmony har-mony with that of the United States government was by my direction speedily formulated in a treaty draft between the two nations embodying the propositions presented by the Chinese Chi-nese foreign office The delIberations frequent oral discussions and correspondence corre-spondence on general questions that have ensued have been fully communicated communi-cated by me to t the Senate the present session and as contained in the Senate Executive documents parts I and II and in Senate Executive document No 27 may be properly referred to as containing con-taining a complete history ci the transaction trans-action It is thus easy to learn how the joint desires and unequivocal mutual understanding under-standing of the two governments brought into articulated form in a treaty which after a mutual exhibition of the pleniary powers from the respective re-spective governments was signed and concluded by the plenipotentiaries of the United States ana China at this coital March 12th last being submitted nor the advice and consent of the San ate its confirmation on the 7th day of May last accompanied by legislative untndments which that body engrafted en-grafted upon it on the 12 h day of the same month The Chinese minister who was plenipotentiary of his govern ment in the negotiation and conclusion in a note to tho Secretary of State gave his approval of these amendments as they did not alter the terms of the treaty and the amendments were at once telegraphed to China whither the original treaty had previously been sent immediately after its signature on March 12th On the 13th day of last month I ap proved the Senate bill No3 304 to pro hibit the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States The bill was in tended to supplement the treaty and I was approved in the confident anticipation antici-pation of an marry exchange of ratifica tions of the treaty and its amendments and the proclamation of the same upon which event the legislation so approved was by its terms to take effect No in formation of any definite action l upon the treaty by the Chinese Government was received until the 21st ultimo the day the bill which I have just approved was presented to me when a telegram from our minister at Peking to the Secretary of State announced the re fusal of the Chinese Government to exchange ex-change ratifications of the treaty unless further discussion be had with a view to shorten the period stipulated in the treaty for the exclusion of Chinese laborers labor-ers and to change the conditions agreed on which should entitle any Cainese laborers who might go bac > to China to return again to the United States By a note from the charge daffaires ad interim of China to the Secretary of State received on the evening of the 25th ultimo a copy of which is herewith transmitted together with a reply there to a third amendment is proposed whereby certificates under which any departing Chinese laborers alleg ing possession of prorerty in umtea states woulc be enabled to re turn to this country should bi granted I by the Chinese consul instead of the United Spates collector as has been provided in the treaty The obvious and necessary effect of this last proposition propo-sition would be practically to place the txcution of the treaty BEYOND THE CONTROL of the United States Article 1 of the treaty proposed to be so materially uttered had in the course of the negotiations nego-tiations been settled in acquiescence with the request of the Chinese plenipo tent ary and to his expressed satisfac tion in 1886 as appears in the documents docu-ments heretofore referred to The Chinese foreign office had formally proposed to our minister the strict exclusion ex-clusion of Chinese laborers from the United States without limitation and had otherwise and more definitely stated no term whatever for the exclusion exclu-sion necessary for the reason that China would of itself take steps to prevent its laborers from coining to the United States in me course ot time negotiations that followed suggestions from the same quarter led to the insertion in bs half of the United States of the term of thirty years and this term upon the representation of the Chinese plenipoten tiary was reduced to twenty years and finally so agreed upon ARTICLE ELEVEN Was wholly of Chinese origination and to that alone owes its presence in the treaty and it is here pertinent to remark that everywhere in the United States the laws for thu collection of debts are equally available to all creditors without respect to race sex I nationality or place of residence and equally with citizens or subjacts of tho most favored nation with the citizens of the United States Recovery can ba had in any court justice in the United States by a subject of China whether of the laboring or any other class No disability accrues from a nonresidence of the plaintiff whose claim can be enforced en-forced in the usual I way by him or his assIgnee or auorney in me courts 01 justice In this respect it cannot be alleged al-leged that there exists the slightest discrimination dis-crimination against Chinese subjects and it is a notable fact that large tr ding d-ing firms and companies and individual merchants and traders of that nation are profitably established at numerous points throughout the Union in whose hands every claim transmitted by absent Chinamen of a just and lawful nature could be completely enforced The admitted and paramount right and duty of every government to exclude from its oorders all elements of foreign prpubtion which for any reason re tard its prosperity or are detrimental to the moral and physical health of its people must ba regarded as a recognized recogniz-ed canon of international law and intercourse in-tercourse China Herself has not dissented dis-sented from this doctrine but has by the expressions to which I have referred led ua confidently to rely upon such action on her part the incorporation of which would enforce the exclusion of Chinese laborers from our country This cooperation has not however been accorded us Thus from the unexpected un-expected and disappointing refusal of tae Chinese Government to confirm the acts of its authorzed agent and to carry into effect the international agree md the main feature wtich was voluntarily present d by that government govern-ment for our acceptance and which has bsen the subject j ol long and careful de liberation an EMERGENCY HAS ARISEN in which the Government of the United States is called upon to act in selfde fence by the exercise of its legislative powers I cannot but regard the expressed demand on the part of China for the reexamination and renewed discussion of the topics so completely covered by mutual treaty stipulations as an indefinite postponement postpone-ment and practical abandonment of the objects we have in view to WhICh the government of China may justly be considered pledged The facts and circumstances cir-cumstances which I have narrated lead me in the performance of what seems to be my official duty to join Congress in dealing legislatively with tho question of the exclusion of Chinese laborers in lieu of further attempts to adjust it bj by international agreement But while exercising our undated right in the interests of oar people and I fur the general welfare of our country j tstice i and fairness S33m to require I that some provision be made by act or I I joint resolution under which sub Chinese laborers as shall aciaVlr have I embarked on their return to the Unitsr dtaes before the passage of thj law tliu day approved and are now on that way may be permitted to land provided they have duly and lawfully obtained and shall present pre-sent certificates heretofore issued permitting them to return in accordance accord-ance with the provisions of the existing law Nor should our recourse to Jegis lative measures of exclusion cause us to retire from the offer we have made to idemnify such Chinese subjects as have suffered damage in remote and comparatively compar-atively unsettled portions of our country coun-try at the hands of lawless men Therefore I recommend without ac knowledging legal liability therefor but because it was stipulated in the treaty which has failed to take effect and in a spirit of humanity befitting our nation that there be appropriated the sum of 286 619 75 payable to the Chinese Minister at this capital in be half of his government aa full idemnity for all losses and injuries sustained by Chinese subjects in the manner and under the circumstances mentioned Signed GEOVER CLEVELAND |