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Show CONSUL MOSBY'S REPORT ON CHINESE IMMIGRATION. The following is the telegraphic report of the proceedings of the Chinese Consul. Several of Consul Mosby's letters to the State Department show that during Consul Bailey's administration of the Hongkong [Hong Kong] consulate, from 1871 to the latter part of 1878, the inspection of Chinese emigrants to the United States under the Act of Congress requiring Consular certificates of their voluntary emigration, was a farce, and merely a means of collecting fees, which Bailey almost wholly pocketed. Mosby in one letter writes: Following is a brief history of the ceremony of examination: "On the day before a vessel was to leave with Chinese emigrants, the U.S. Consul was informed that at a certain hour the passengers would be ready on board for examination. At the appointed time, Peter Smith, an illiterate keeper of a sailor's boarding-house, appeared, with the Consular seal. The passengers came on deck and passed in review before him, each being asked if he was a voluntary emigrant; if he said that he was, his ticket was stamped with the Consular seal. It would take, on an average, about one hour to complete the investigation. This was the whole proceeding." The General stated in his report of September 20th, of the results of the investigations, under orders of the State Department as follows. "Upon the general question as to the voluntary character of Chinese emigration, I find it difficult to form a satisfactory judgment. Among foreigners, in China, the prevalent belief is that so far as the Pacific States of the United States are concerned, this emigration is mainly promoted by the six Chinese Companies, or Guilds, of San Francisco, and that emigrants, after arrival, remain in the power of these companies, and are in fact controlled by them. I find this belief so strong and so general, even among persons who differ as regards the expediency of the emigration, that I must declare it worthy of serious consideration; but at the same time I have been unable to obtain any direct or clear evidence to support it. This is possibly owing to the secrecy which characterizes all such combinations among the Chinese, and to the great power and influence they everywhere possess; and as long as the emigrants continue to declare, throughout the several searching examinations to which they are subjected, not only their willingness to go, but that they go freely and voluntarily, it may be impossible to show any unlawful arrangement between them and the said Companies." |
