Mr. Tsui to Mr. Blaine.
Washington, December 4, 1890. (Received December 5.)
Sir: From the several notes which have been addressed to your Department by this legation since the passage by the Congress of the United States of the exclusion act of October 1, 1888, it is known to you that my Government has earnestly desired that that honorable body should undo that act of hardship and treaty abrogation. I watched with interest the proceedings of the last session, and at its close it became my unpleasant duty to inform my Government that it had adjourned without taking any action looking to the repeal or modification of the act of 1888.
I am now in receipt of instructions from the Imperial Government, directing me to convey to you the disappointment it has experienced at the intelligence communicated by me, and to express to you the hope that during the session which convened on the 1st instant Congress may take such action as will assure the Imperial Government of the desire of that of the United States to maintain in full force and vigor the treaties entered into between the two nations, and thus renew and strengthen the friendly relations which have so long existed.
[Page 230]I hope that you will not interpret this note into any manifestation of impatience at the nonreceipt of the reply which was promised in your note to me of October 6 last. You will, I am quite sure, understand the natural desire of my Government (which makes it my duty at this time to again address you) to relieve the many thousands of my countrymen from the sad situation in which they have been placed by the passage of the law cited. The records of the custom-house at San Francisco alone show that over 20,000 Chinese subjects who had left their temporary homes and business in the United States, bearing with them, under the seal of the United States, certificates of their right to return, were, in violation of these certificates and of solemn treaty guaranties, absolutely and without notice excluded from the United States by that law. And so severely was that law enforced that those Chinese who were on the high sea at the time it was passed were forbidden to land at San Francisco and were driven back to China. The great pecuniary loss which these Chinese subject share sustained on account of being excluded from their temporary homes and business in this country has been regarded by my Government as a serious hardship. Besides these, the law has been very oppressive and unjust in its effects upon a still greater number of Chinese subjects. Under the pro-provisions of the treaty of 1880, the Chinese laborers then in the United States were guarantied the right “to go and come of their own free will and accord,” but the act of 1888 nullifies this stipulation, and the Chinese laborers are therefore denied the privilege of a visit to their native land, or it must be made at the sacrifice of all their business interests in this country.
In view of the injustice and loss which has been and still is being inflicted by the operations of this law, my Government has felt it necessary that I should again make known to you its earnest desire that something should be done to alleviate the injuries being suffered on account of its passage.
I need hardly add that this representation is not made out of any disposition to aggravate the present unsatisfactory condition of our relations, but with the earnest hope that it may lead to some settlement which will cement our old friendship and create new relations of harmony and freer commercial intercourse.
I improve the opportunity, etc.