Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 4, 1876

No. 44.
Mr. Seward to Mr. Fish.

United States Legation,
Peking, July 1, 1876. (Received August 25.)

No. 97.]

Sir: The Senatorial Chinese Investigating Committee of California have addressed to Dr. Williams a series of sixteen questions bearing upon the subject of their investigation, which he has answered. He has prepared and handed to me the inclosed copy of the queries and his responses. This I send to you for the files of the Department. He has told me that he will send the original paper to you with the request that you will forward it to the committee if you see no good reason to the contrary.

I have, &c.,

GEORGE F. SEWARD.

[Inclosure.]

Replies to sixteen inquiries from the Senatorial Chinese Investigating Committee of California respecting Chinese Immigration, sent to S. Wells Williams by Frank Suay, secretary, April 20, 1876.

First. From what particular province or portion of China does the mass of emigration flow, and what do you know of the extent of that emigration?

The emigrants who have gone to California are natives of the province of Kwangtung to such an extent that it is safe to refer more than nine-tenths of the whole to it. The entire area of this province is reckoned at about 80,000 square miles, (same as that of Oregon;) but the largest portion of the emigrants go from its most populous prefecture of Kwangchau, in which the city of Canton and colony of Macao lie. This prefecture, which contains fourteen districts, may be roughly estimated at one-tenth or more of the whole province, and for population, resources, and energy of its inhabitants is the leading division. They speak generally the same dialect, and as they have peculiar facilities for intercourse through the great number of creeks and canals which intersect it and connect with the Pearl River and the sea-coast, in their admirable boats, they are very well acquainted with each other’s movements, wants, and industries. It is from this region, one also more or less connected with foreign trade for the last three centuries, that emigration has flowed to California and Australia more than from other parts; and to this familiarity with that trade, by having shared in its benefits, may partly be ascribed the readiness with which its inhabitants have gone abroad. If the clause in this inquiry, “What do you know of the extent of that emigration?” refers to the area of country from which it proceeds, I can only give a guess that it hardly exceeds 15,000 square miles, and this includes portions of the adjoining prefectures.

Second. If from any particular province, what is about the population of that province?

The population of this province of Kwangtung, according to the best information, is about twenty millions, and I should reckon the proportion of this particular region which furnishes the emigrants at not less than five millions. Foreigners have not that ready access to the official returns of local censuses which will enable them to compare them with the population personally observed, even on a small area, and thus ascertain what degree of accuracy can be fairly ascribed to them; but, as this region is exceedingly fertile and accessible, this estimate of five millions is no doubt within the truth. The city of Canton contains a million, and there are other large cities.

Third. Is the government of that province in any sense distinct or independent from that of the Chinese Empire, or is it so in regard to any laws concerning emigration? Please give an outline of the government of the empire and of the provinces, and of their bearings upon each other.

The Chinese Empire is, both in theory and practice, a centralized government, whose sway extends over the whole of its vast area as one power, each of its eighteen provinces being controlled by the imperial authority in Peking. The administration of a province is in no ways distinct or independent of that authority, and all its members are appointed through the board of civil office at the capital; but none of them are permitted to hold any important position in the civil service of a province if natives of it. There is a large liberty allowed to the highest functionaries of a province in the exercise of powers intrusted to them, limited chiefly to their executive duties, though they often act in a legislative and judicial way, too, for in China these three departments are not very carefully defined or restrained.

However, as emigration is now free and the old restrictions have not the least authority, no provincial officer would presume to issue any regulation to limit or guide it where it is voluntary. In China laws fall into disuse, and are not formally abrogated, as with us, so that old statutes or edicts are frequently re-enacted or re-issued, according to the needs of the time, the caprices of the magistrate, or in compliance with the orders of his superiors.

The idea of good government in China is to maintain the peace in the country, collect the revenue, disburse the sums due to those on the civil and military lists, and remit to Peking the proportion of taxes assessed on the region, if the soldiers who may be in the field do not require the whole. To promote industry, open or repair roads, clear water-courses, establish schools, develop mines, encourage mechanical or other arts by granting patents, or, in fine, perform the duties of officers solicitous to elevate their, subjects and win their loyalty by consulting their welfare—none of these things have yet really entered into the minds of the rulers of this land as part of their proper responsibilities.

There is a radical difference between governments of Christian countries and this of China, in respect to the rights of the people contrasted with the privileges and duties of their rulers; for in this country the rights may be generally stated to be all on the part of the latter, and the duties all incumbent on the former. The Peking government is composed of a large body of officers and placemen, arranged under several boards and councils, with a vast body of underlings, whose highest members conduct the affairs of state under the direct control of the Emperor, and the subordinates are employed in the capital or appointed to vacant posts in the provinces. The eighteen provinces are primarily governed by eight tsung-tuh or governors general, and sixteen fu-tai or governors; and there are altogether ten separate jurisdictions among them, each amenable directly to the court at Peking. A principle of responsibility, by which an officer’s position and even life is jeoparded by the conduct of an inferior, permeates the whole system, and somewhat cripples its efficiency, as it leads every individual officer to shirk danger and throw the risk of results on his subordinates. Each governorship being independent, a sedition in one province is not presently felt in the next, and its authorities endeavor, as best they can, to put it down without depending for aid on their neighbors, who do not usually act until orders come from Peking; but, in fact, each province is not much more than able to take care of its own affairs. The loyalty of the Chinese people to their present government, among all ranks, grows out of a general conviction that it is the best for all which they know; and when rebels endeavor to destroy it, they allege, in excuse, that the administration is so corrupt that it can no longer be endured, and rebellion is the only remedy. The system has worked so well, however, that during the last 250 years none of the high provincial grandees have rebelled against their sovereign, although wielding great resources in men, wealth, and material. You ask me to give an outline of the government of the empire, &c., but the topic is too wide for an outline; and as I do not see its relevancy to the main subject of this reply, I beg to refer you to the Middle Kingdom, (vol. 1, pp. 296, 343, 499,) where ampler details can be found than I have leisure now to go into.

In regard to emigration, there is doubtless a general desire on the part of the government to retain its subjects in their own land, and in the minds of educated men every one who leaves it is held to take the worst choice. He leaves the known for the unknown, and goes into savage regions where no imperial protection can ever reach him. This public sentiment tends to restrain emigration, and in fact at the distance of one or two hundred miles from the coast few go abroad. The people near the sea or along the frontiers have emigrated as they have found opportunity, and few have ever returned; so that is not a new or sudden impulse which now possesses them. On the north they pass into Mongolia and Manchuria, where vast unoccupied tracts invite their tillage. On the south they go to Lucon, Borneo, Singapore, and islands in the Archipelago, where they trade and farm, ply their handicrafts, and gradually settle down. On the southwest they find their way into Siam, Burmah, India, and farther on, everywhere adding to the wealth of the land by their thrift and industry. In some parts of Borneo and Malaysia they form small self-governing settlements, but usually they are obedient to the local authority, while fond of retaining their national identity and language by uniting themselves into companies or societies for mutual aid and protection. In Manchuria they are still within their own Emperor’s domain, but there, as elsewhere, their plodding toil gives them a superiority, and distinguishes them from all other Asiatics. I have no data from which to calculate the amount of this emigration, for no one has been able to follow it up and get the statistics, but it is probably less now than it was forty years ago, owing to the departures for other countries, America, Cuba, Australia, &c.

Fourth. From what port of China does the mass of emigrants depart? And if you answer Hong-Kong, please state what relation that port has to the Chinese Empire, or any other government, and whether the Chinese Empire has any control over emigration from that port.

So far as I know, emigrant-ships have very seldom gone to California sailing direct from any port in China; if so, it was probably from Wharapoa. It is the security which the emigrants have that if they embark at Hong-Kong they will not be carried elsewhere, that has had some influence in centering the business there, and the other fact that their own rulers cannot interfere in a foreign port. To say that Hong-Kong is a British colony is to assure you that the Chinese government has not the least jurisdiction over it, no more power to restrain or interfere with emigration thence than it has from Japan or Manila. It is not easy to say what “relation” it has to China; for, politically, they are totally independent and the Chinese Court has not even a consular agent there. Its proximity to Canton, and the large trade and travel between it and the mainland, involve much intercourse in steamers and small native craft, which has been of a peaceful character, and on the whole beneficial. The two steamboats plying between Hong-Kong and Canton daily often carry a thousand passengers.

The officials at Canton have never, so far as I know, shown a desire to interfere with their countrymen going to Hong-Kong; nor have the British tried to detain them. Such an attempt on either part would be unwise, for it would be disregarded if attempted, and quite futile.

Fifth. What class of Chinese emigrate to the United States? What is their condition at home with regard to wages, occupations, caste or class, freedom or servitude, habits of living, morals, &c.?

The class of Chinese which emigrate, in the main, are from the agricultural and working portions of society, probably not two per cent. coming from the literary class. They are such people as depend on their daily labor for daily food and raiment, and are induced to go abroad from hearing of the higher wages in other lands, high compared with the pittance they can get at home. There is no caste among the Chinese, no privileged class or titled aristocracy on the one hand claiming rights over serfs, or slaves on the other; and, consequently, no power inheres in the hands of one portion of society to get rid of their drones, their criminals, their paupers, or their useless slaves, by shipping them to other lands. Those who arrive in California are free men, poor, ignorant, and uncivilized indeed, easily governed and not disposed to make trouble in any way, but hoping to get a good price for their labor. Born and brought up under heathenish influences, their notions of morality and law are low, and cannot be fairly judged by the Christian code; in their own land they are taught obedience to parents, and are not inclined to riot or robbery. These emigrants, on the whole, are above the average of their countrymen over the whole empire, especially in enterprise, ability to read their own language, and skill in mechanics; for I consider the Cantonese as the superior portion of the Chinese race, at least superior to those living in the northern provinces. Their average wages at home may be reckoned at less than three dollars a month, rather than more; their clothes cost them little in that climate, and need not be reckoned, food and rent being the chief items. They are not addicted to drinking, but the practice of smoking opium is increasing among them and carried wherever they go.

Sixth. Do you know of the existence, or former existence, of any contracts by which emigrants are shipped to the United States and held there until the contracts are complied with? If so, state what the contracts are, who made them in China, and who represent such contractors in the United States.

I know nothing of the existence of any contracts made in China by which emigrants are shipped to America. I have never seen such a contract, nor heard it described as containing stipulations by which one party bound himself to work for the other at certain wages for a specified time. I suppose reference is made to the agreement entered into between the agent who charters the ship and the poorer passengers to refund any advances made to the latter for their passage-money as they can earn it. I was a passenger in an emigrant-ship going to San Francisco in 1860, and I was told that a large proportion of the 318 Chinese on board had entered into such an agreement, binding themselves to work out and pay back the advances made in Hong-Kong for all or part of their passage-money to the Gold Hills. The same system is in force in the emigration business to Singapore and Borneo, and I was told by the United States consul at the former place that he had himself once gone on board a junk arrived in the harbor with laborers and engaged several for his plantation, for whom he was obliged to pay a large sum in advance to re-imburse the captain for their passage-money. Every man thus engaged honestly worked out his indebtedness. I suppose such contracts as this are made with most of the men going to California, and their nature and mode of repayment can easily be learned in the State itself. In respect to the emigration to the United States and to Australia, I think it is reasonable to infer that their names of Old and New Gold Hills (Kan Kām Shan and Sān Kām Shan) have served as a temptation and stimulus to persons inclined to try their fortunes abroad, and explain the increase thither more perhaps than we are aware. If a Chinese was debating where to go, such a name would naturally turn his choice.

Seventh. Do you know of the existence in California of Chinese companies, (now six in number?) If so, what is the basis of their organizations, what are their objects, how supported, what are their laws or rules, and what jurisdiction do they claim or assert over their members or emigrants to the United States? Have such companies any representatives in China? If so, in what part of China, and who are they?

In relation to the six companies, whose organization is referred to, I only know of their existence, and have been told that they exercise various intermediary functions between their countrymen in the United States and in Hong-Kong, but I have no definite information upon the matter.

Eighth. What do you understand, and what is the general acceptation in China of the terms “cooly” and “cooly-trade,” and what is your interpretation of, and what is the meaning attached by the Chinese officials to, the term “cooly-trade,” as employed in the Burlingame treaty?

The word cooly is of Hindoo origin, and means a day-laborer. It is used in China chiefly by foreigners, though it has a currency at the coast ports among the natives to designate a common laborer, one who goes out to day’s work, runs and serves as a menial in a shop or household, or can be hired for a job where unskilled labor only is expected. The term cooly-trade is only applied to the business of obtaining men to go abroad under a written engagement to work at a certain price for a number of years, and signing such contracts with them before sailing to the country designated.

The phrase was early applied to the agency established in Calcutta to engage Bengalese to go to the Mauritius as farm-hands, to supply the place of the negro slaves recently emancipated; and it has gone on for about forty years, until at present this portion of the population exceeds that of all other classes. The cooly-trade began in Canton about the year 1848, and has been stopped only within two years by the refusal of the Portuguese authorities of Macao to allow ships carrying Chinese laborers to leave port. In former years they were shipped at Canton, Amoy, Swatow, Shanghai, and perhaps elsewhere along the coast, as well as at Hong-Kong; but owing to the atrocities growing out of the business, from the manner of engaging and shipping the men, the governments of Great Britain and the United States forbade their flags to be used to cover the trade. Gradually the whole business centered in Macao, where finally only Spanish and Peruvian agents resided to secure laborers in any way it could be done for Cuba and Peru, the only countries to which latterly they were taken. This alone is the traffic known as the cooly-trade, termed chao kung, or “hiring workmen,” in Chinese; but in the common talk at Canton described as mai chu tsai, or “sold as a pig, [in a basket,”] in allusion to the way in which the men were carried off and never returned. It is not employed in the Burlingame treaty, and the Chinese officials, therefore, had no need to ask its meaning; but Article V of that compact is designed to prevent it, by an agreement between the high contracting powers to pass laws making it a penal offense for their subjects, respectively, to take laborers to other countries against their free consent. The phrase to take laborers is even stronger in Chinese than it is in English, for mein kiang tai wang involves the idea of actual constraint to make them go.

For ten years or so previous to 1874, the difference between the cooly-trade at Macao and the emigration business at Hong-Kong was so well known among the natives on the adjacent main-land, that it was enough for them to know whence a man sailed to know whether he was bond or free, whether he would ever be heard from and return home or not. I lived in Macao during the existence of the cooly-trade in its earlier and less repulsive days, and I saw enough to convince me that it was accompanied, even up to 1859, with so much that was illegal and inhuman in the way of cajolery, intimidation, and actual kidnaping, that it could not safely be allowed, for these acts were necessary sequences of every attempt to load ships with coolies. I think it is certain that no ship ever arrived in California with Chinese who had been engaged to go there as contract-laborers, and it is highly probable that hundreds, perhaps thousands, have been deluded into accepting contracts as coolies from an idea that they were to be taken to the gold hills, even if they were not actually told so. Their ignorance was their destruction.

Ninth. State at length the forms prescribed and in use by the British colonial government at Hong-Kong in the shipment of Chinese from that port to the United States; also the forms prescribed for and in use by the American consul at that port in such shipment. Are the laws in force by the Chinese, British, and United States governments in regard to emigration of Chinese to the United States strictly enforced, and are they such that, if enforced, they would prevent the emigration of servile or contract Chinese labor to the United States?

The answer to the inquiries under this head respecting emigration from Hong-Kong can only be given there in a satisfactory manner. Chinese laws are inoperative in that colony; but it is allowable to engage contract-laborers at any open port in China for other countries, except Peru and Portugal, under regulations calculated to insure the safety and return of the laborer when his contract is fulfilled.

Tenth. Are the Chinese or provincial governments in favor of or adverse to the emigration of Chinese?

The distinction made in this inquiry between the Chinese and provincial governments does not exist, and the expression tends to mislead. The sentiment among the educated classes of this country is adverse to emigration, and very few of them go out of its borders. Their opinion, too, influences and deters others, as has been stated under the third answer, but it would not be very effectual if there was more knowledge of other lands among their countrymen. Along the coasts south of Shanghai, the seafaring habits of the people have long familiarized them with emigration. As they began to trade with Manila, Batavia, Siam, or Singapore, and settle there, the relatives and others left at home began to look toward these places when out of employment. The people of Amoy went to Manila and Batavia; those from Swatow, to Bangkok; those from Kiaying Chau, (north of it,) to Borneo; and those from towns in the vicinity of the last two, to Singapore. It is not alone their better knowledge of these places, and friends living there, which induced the people of these various towns thus to follow their leaders; the strongest inducement is that there alone they can be easily understood, as the dialect is the same. An Amoy man would hardly think of going to a place where Canton or Shanghai men lived, on account of this difficulty of understanding each other’s speech; and this feature of Chinese emigration applies to California. Those now in that State are from Kwangchau, and there is not much fear that natives from other regions, who speak another dialect, will go there, even if they could expect to make their way against the Cantonese. The peculiarities of dialect have great power in the country itself in deciding where a man goes, and exert a still stronger influence upon emigration abroad.

Eleventh. Do you know, and if so state, the number of Chinese who have emigrated to the United States, and the number that have returned to China?

I have no means of ascertaining how many Chinese have emigrated to the United States, or have subsequently returned home, and therefore have no answer to make.

Twelfth. What is the social position of the female in China? Is polygamy lawful? Are the children of polygamous wives or of concubines legitimate? Is the infanticide of female children countenanced, permitted, or legalized? Is prostitution in China regarded with the same idea of moral degradation as in civilized countries? Is there any considerable emigration of the female Chinese from China to the United States, and, if so, to what extent, and of what class are the emigrants?

The social position of women in China cannot properly be compared with what it is in civilized countries, for the acceptance of the Christian religion has wrought a radical change in the standing granted to her; but, in comparison with her treatment in Mohammedan and other pagan countries, as India, Burmah, Japan, Egypt, Persia, &c., she stands higher; her legal rights are probably better guarded by law and custom, and her education and influence in the family are fully as great. In these particulars I think she has reached as high a point in China as is possible without the elevating and purifying power of Christianity; but the difference between that point and what we expect and strive for in female culture is still very great.

No English word exactly describes the marriage relations allowed by Chinese laws, and it has been a subject of discussion whether polygamy or monogamy is preferable. No Chinese is allowed to take a tsi or wife while he has one already living, for this would be regarded as bigamy, and a violation of law; but he can bring one, two, or more women into his house as tsich or concubines, while the tsi is living as his acknowledged wife. She is betrothed with certain legal formalities, followed by the exchange of presents, and, what is the most important of all and final act, with a public procession through the streets; while the tsich is taken privately, and stands in her husband’s family in the same position that Hagar did in Abraham’s except that her legal rights are more secure, and she cannot be sent out of the house without very good cause. In point of fact, very few Chinese have more than the tsi, and then she is usually the chief agent in bringing in the tsich. The children of both women are equal, and no shadow of aspersion is ever brought against the family on this ground.

The practice of infanticide is chiefly confined to girls, but it is frowned upon by the best part of society, and is neither countenanced, permitted, nor legalized. Laws are constantly issued against it, tracts are circulated gratuitously denouncing it as murder, a crime sure to be visited with Heaven’s retribution, and nobody defends it. The extent to which it is practiced, the places where it prevails, and the motives which induce its commission, are all of them points which have attracted much attention among foreigners; for it is generally believed here that the ideas entertained abroad as to its extent are exaggerated, and the Chinese people as a whole unjustly stigmatized in this particular. Though entirely illegal, public opinion can only frown upon it, for its commission passes unpunished, and the guilty parents are not afraid to own their dark deeds.

Prostitution stands in rather a different position in China than in western lands, for the unhappy women who follow this life were most of them taken into the bagnios when mere girls, sold at an early age by their relatives, on account, it may be, of poverty, or stolen from their homes by pimps. There is not, therefore, usually that fall from virtue here that is involved in this kind of life in Christian lands. These women are generally gathered in special communities in large towns, somewhat separated from other parts, and, though their position is degraded, they occasionally get husbands. Street-walkers are unknown.

Very few, indeed, of the emigrants to California have taken their families, and the same custom prevails among those who have gone to Siam, Singapore, or Australia; for Chinese women refuse to leave their homes and families to go anywhere, and the men do not urge them. Even in this city of Peking, there are thousands of shopkeepers, artisans, and official underlings or servants whose families remain in the adjoining provinces or prefectures, while they carry on business, even to old age, making an annual visit home. Much more then would the women decline to cross the seas, and this tends to make the emigration largely consist of young men, whose withdrawal from the maritime districts has left behind such a disproportion of girls and women that it has been adduced to account for the prevalence of infanticide, which the inhabitants of Amoy, Hinghwa, and other places in Fuhkien, do not hesitate to confess exists among them. Even with a large increase of knowledge, I do not think that Chinese married women could be induced to emigrate to much extent; it is not their custom; their husbands can get other women if they choose where they are going; they can manage to support themselves; their little feet disable them from traveling with ease; in short, like the Shunamite, they prefer to dwell among their own people, and not infrequently, too, prefer to have their husbands go off. I have heard that most of the “female Chinese” (as they are termed in this query) who have gone to California have been public women; but I have no data as to their numbers, or whether any of them go back to Hong-Kong.

Thirteenth. Do you know whether the returned Chinese retain any affection or regard for the Government of the United States, or for its people; or do they understand or endeavor to learn anything of its institutions; or is their sole motive for emigration merely the love of gain, with the settled intention to return to their own country, and not to become permanent citizens or residents of the United States?

In reply to the various points grouped under this head, I am unable to give much information derived from personal contact with returned emigrants. The affection which a returned miner or washerman would have for the Government of the United States would depend upon the way he had been treated by the people; and in early times this was usually not such as to encourage him to go back. Few of these men had such an education, either, in their own language as would fit them to write an account of their experiences and describe the country they went to, so as to make known its institutions, its extent, its productions, and its resources, even if they wished to do so, and yet their contact with countrymen and friends has no doubt diffused a certain knowledge of the United States throughout the province. The impression made from these reports must have been rather favorable, or the emigration would have diminished and not increased.

Among the mass of Chinese throughout the whole land, I have no doubt that the United States is regarded as favorably as any other foreign country, perhaps more so; but this involves very little knowledge after all, so ignorant are they of the condition and position of outside regions. This better knowledge of the United States, however, is only partially owing to the returned emigrants. I do not suppose that the Chinese usually go to California with a settled intention to stay or to return; they go there as they go to Siam—to better their condition, get work, or see what they can. Most foreigners come to China for much the same reasons. The most of them are too old to learn English properly, and seldom attempt to master our written language. Thrifty and economical at home from necessity, they carry these habits with them, lay up all they can of their earnings, which they send or take home with them, and probably make few connections in our country. Of the tens of thousands who have returned to Kwangtung, only a very few come in contact with foreigners, and of these few still fewer are able to give an intelligent opinion on such subjects as our American institutions and people; tell the difference between an alien and a citizen, or decide whether they had any affection or regard for the country or not. It is unreasonable to expect it in the great majority of cases, in the sense which I think this question involves, nor would the officials ever think of inquiring from them about the land of their sojourn, and the emigrant himself would keep aloof from his rulers. It may be assumed, with respect to most of them, that they hope and intend to return to China when they have made money enough, so far as they make any definite decision; but I think none go with the design of becoming permanent citizens in the same sense that European emigrants leave their homes to settle in the United States. They have never discussed the question, and have little idea what is involved in it.

Fourteenth. In your opinion is emigration from China to the United States increasing or diminishing, comparing it with the past?

I have no means of answering this inquiry, as it involves an examination of the shipping reports at Hong-Kong, or a comparison of the censuses taken in California and other States.

Fifteenth. What, in your opinion, is the effect upon California and the United States of the Chinese immigration as regards commerce, industry, and morals? What would be the effect of a continued flow of that immigration if continued in the same ratio as in the past?

The purport of this inquiry as to the effect upon California and the United States of the Chinese immigration upon commerce, industry, and morals, opens a wide range of remark. Its advantage to commerce depends altogether upon the extent of their trade; if that increases as their numbers increase, it swells the total of the port of San Francisco. The transportation of so many people to and fro of itself gives employment to ships and merchants to no small extent, and they themselves make a trade; so that one would think that there can be no doubt that they have been a benefit to the general commerce of the State. No complaint is made that Chinese firms, settled there, refuse to submit to the imposts and taxes levied on their trade, although they have managed to keep it pretty closely in their own hands, so far as supplying their own people with Chinese goods. All these goods would never have been wanted, and much other collateral traffic would never have existed, if there were no immigrants; but these remarks are so self-evident that I fear that I have failed to see the real bearing of the inquiry. If its aim is to ascertain whether the gold and silver carried home by these people is a loss to the State, I should say it was not. They have earned it by their industry, and left its equivalent in their labor. The precious metals form one of the common products of the country; the supply is greater than the needs require for carrying on the business, as the comparatively high prices of labor and living show, and their outflow does no injury, therefore, to any interest in it. They constitute the riches of California to a very limited extent, and it is because she has so much wealth in other things that she retains so great a proportion of the mineral products which are not wanted to buy those other things from abroad. The Chinese can never impoverish California by carrying home their earnings.

The real point in this question is probably whether the effect of their presence upon the industry of the country is good or not; whether it interferes with the labor already there so as to entail damage upon the interests connected therewith; and the condition and needs of that industry should decide the answer. That the Chinese laborer was once in demand, and even necessary, every one who crosses the plains on the Pacific Railroad will acknowledge, for, without him, it would not have been built when most needed. Other public and private works were begun because he was ready to do them, and were completed or are now going on because he is still there. Labor, like gold and silver, naturally seeks the best market, and no laws can prevent capitalists employing it in preference to that which is higher-priced. Competition in labor must equalize itself, and will do so sooner or later, unless force or discriminating protection is employed to prevent it, an issue that is very improbable in the United States. Chinese industry will soon rise in value, as the immigrants become skilled in doing what is wanted. If the complaint is now that it depreciates other kinds, the same cry was heard in the Atlantic States thirty years ago; but prices found their natural level.

I have heard the suggestion that a ready means of excluding the Chinese would be to abrogate the treaty between the United States and China, or at least to annul Article V of the supplementary part, known as the Burlingame treaty. Not to lay stress upon the fact that this portion of the treaty was urged upon the Chinese authorities by our own Government—and they accepted it with some hesitation, allowing fourteen months to elapse before they would exchange the ratifications—it can be easily proved that, even if this fifth article was abrogated, it would have little or no effect upon the emigration. The imperial government can no more control the movements of its subjects, or keep them within its territory, than the President can restrain those of our citizens; neither power can control or limit emigration or travel. Furthermore, as almost no Chinese go to the United States directly from China, and no treaty between these two countries could influence emigration from British territory, or prevent ships loading at Hong-Kong from receiving passengers, the proposition to abrogate this article shows how little the question has been studied.

It would besides be a strange proposal to make to the court of Peking to abrogate an article in a treaty almost forced upon its acceptance less than ten years ago, because the Emperor’s subjects had acted on its suggestions more extensively than we expected they would. He might well reply that the whole treaty had better be made void; for he had found by troublesome experience that its clauses and articles giving us the right of consular jurisdiction over our own citizens, the privilege of travel in his dominions, the permission to propagate Christian doctrines among his subjects, the liberty for ministers to reside at Peking, with other stipulations forced upon him in 1858, were all in the highest degree objectionable, injurious, and derogatory. He would gladly have all the treaties become a dead letter, and if one power came with a proposal to annul or amend one article, there might be hope that the yoke imposed by the various treaties might be taken off. The mere proposal on our part to substitute another article regulating or limiting the free emigration from China to America in place of this Article V would be humiliating, and a moment’s thought will show how useless the substitution would be if it could be arranged.

This emigration is the result of wider intercourse between the two countries. Here an overflowing population has found out that a demand exists there for labor, and its employment in our fields and shops will certainly benefit our industry. The struggle in China is rather between the machine-factured goods of western lands and the manufactured goods of native make, and the former seem to be gradually winning. The struggle in the Pacific States just now seems to be between Christian, civilized labor, with its higher and better demands for the soul and body, and pagan unskilled labor, nurtured in a lower grade and content with less. The natural tendency would be to elevate the latter, as the results have already proven to some extent, for the immigrants soon seek higher knowledge and have more wants. The fear that they may injure the industry of the State seems, too, judging by the past experience, to be based a good deal on the complaints of those now out of work in this time of general depression, and those who can make themselves heard in public meetings and the newspapers, which the Chinese cannot do very easily. They wish to find a reason why the demand for their labor has ceased, and take this immigration as the excuse and the cause. It will cease as soon as it finds no field, and the Chinese will stay at home or go elsewhere; for in California they begin to feel that there is a social ban upon them, a disfavor like that with which the official and educated class in their own country look upon foreigners. There is nothing to be said in behalf of such a sentiment on either side, but the American has the least excuse for it, and happily is doing much to remove it by teaching his visitors and diffusing truth among their countrymen at home. Our whole country can easily give employment to a few myriads of industrious Chinese, and if those who came over had landed at half a dozen ports instead of all coming in at one, their presence would probably cause little remark, and they would quietly scatter over the land.

The effect of this immigration on the morals of the Americans among whom it comes, depends almost wholly upon what they themselves do to prevent the bad results which may ensue. If the higher civilization and Christian energy of the American people in California cannot devise means to remove the ignorance, abate the prejudices, and enlighten the paganism of those thus brought to their doors, it is weak indeed. But the highest efforts of benevolence cannot do everything; law and force must aid them. For instance, I may refer to the crowding of so many people into lodgings quite insufficient for their accommodation; and if no means are taken by the authorities of the State or city to prevent or remedy the evils arising from their herding together in houses where neither air, light, nor cleanliness exist to make them fit for human habitations, I do not decide which is most to blame, or which is likely to suffer the most. The Chinese are quite ignorant of the laws of hygiene, and in their own land they sicken and die from neglecting them, and must do so until they learn and follow a better way. How much more they are likely to live regardless of consequences in other lands, where they have no power usually to better themselves in these respects, but are compelled to live as their landlords make them. The morals of a community suffer when its members live in confined or badly ventilated houses, and it is certainly within the functions of the local authorities and boards of health to compel the Chinese to live so as not to endanger the lives, health, and best interests of themselves or their neighbors.

One means of preventing injury in these respects—and its benefits would extend much wider than the improvement of houses—is, to educate a number of Americans in the Chinese language for official interpreters and translators. One cannot blame the immigrants for their misfortune in not knowing how to speak English on their arrival; and it is prudent to meet the difficulty arising from this fact by having men prepared to meet them and help them understand their new relations. These interpreters would be the medium through which the Chinese can reach the authorities directly, either to state their grievances, or learn what are the laws; they would act generally as government agents in making known its orders. Their existence would encourage well-disposed Chinese to go directly to the rulers and state their matters, feeling that they were not shut up to use one of their own countrymen who knew our language. Laws could be promulgated in Chinese, written and oral evidence taken in courts, when there was reason to fear it was altered or misunderstood; and that direct oversight by responsible officers maintained over this alien population which it is the duty of a government to do. In such a case prevention of evil is good government; and it seems to me that one of the most likely means to diminish the injury to morals, is to train competent American interpreters, giving them permanent positions in the local government. Such men are found to be necessary in Hong-Kong, Macao, Singapore, Batavia, and other places where Chinese are under foreign sway. They are as much, if not more, needed in California; and it is my belief that no satisfactory or intelligent relations can be established with the mass of Chinese immigrants until they are brought into direct contact with their rulers. The fact that hundreds of them read and write English well, does not obviate the necessity of having our own people as well acquainted with their language.

I think that the effects of Chinese immigration upon commerce and industry are on the whole highly beneficial. In respect to morals it will probably be detrimental unless measures are taken to remove the ignorance of these strangers, restrain their vices, and treat them justly. If we, who live in China, had been treated as they have been in the United States, I think a war would have ensued to defend us in the possession of our treaty rights, or we should have had to leave the country. The murders, the robberies, and the cruelties practiced upon the Chinese in California up to March, 1862, as set forth in a memorial from them to the legislature, have been unknown in this land. The contrast is not to our credit.

To prevent the extension of opium-smoking among them; to learn thoroughly the working of their companies and guilds; to encourage them to bring their families; to inform them upon whatever will help them become better—all these duties need to be fulfilled to prevent them from injuring the “social condition of the State,” as the legislative resolution appointing this committee expresses it. In the providence of God they have been brought into the midst of a Christian community, and their condition imposes some new duties upon that community, which, if not fulfilled, will entail bad results.

Sixteenth. Is there any superstition or rule of religious faith among the Chinese inculcating the return to China of the bones of their dead dying in other countries, and would legislation in the United States prohibiting the removal of such remains materially affect Chinese immigration?

In their own country the Chinese take pains, and go to much expense, to have their dead buried in the family tomb. It arises from a desire, common in all lands and ages, to be gathered, after death, to one’s fathers in the ancestral sepulchre; but is perhaps stronger among this people than elsewhere in consequence of the prevalence of ancestral worship. The practice of removing the bodies of those who die in other provinces to their paternal vaults depends, however, more upon the means of the parties than on any tenet of religious faith. Thousands do carry it out, but the thousands who have not the money content themselves with depositing the coffin in houses erected for this purpose in every large city, there to remain till the family has the means and opportunity to remove it, which usually is never.

If the legislature should pass a law prohibiting coffins containing dead bodies to be exported, it would not probably have the least effect to dissuade men from starting for the gold-hills. None of the intending; emigrants would expect to come under its operation; and those living in the State, wishing to send away such coffins, would quietly submit to it, wondering, meanwhile, why such a thing was forbidden to Chinese in the United States, when Americans in China were free to do it. I can hardly suppose such a prohibition is intended. So far as I know, emigrants to Siam and the Indian Archipelago do not send the bodies of their dead back to China, but the majority of them marry and settle where they find employment, which adequately explains the different usage. I suppose that the extent to which the repatriation of the dead from California is carried, has been partly owing to the existence of societies organized for the purpose; and that the societies arose from the condition of most of the immigrants, whose unsettled life led them to subscribe regular sums to defray the expense in case of their death. In many instances they had left families behind them, and were disinclined to be buried in a foreign country where no son or relative would ever worship at their tomb. The society was pledged to send home the coffins of its deceased members, if it took in subscriptions; and to do so was comparatively easy between San Francisco and Hong-Kong. I do not know whether the practice exists among the emigrants to Australia.

The above are the direct answers to the sixteen inquiries sent me in your letter, and contain the information which I am able to give on the subjects referred to, or the opinions I have formed. I must state, however, that on some of the points, my information is probably imperfect, and consequently my opinion must be taken for what it is worth. This remark applies to the answers relating to the Chinese in California rather than to those connected with them in their own land.

In view of the whole subject, it is proper to add a few observations upon two features of this immigration which distinguish it from that arriving in the Atlantic States; and make it objectionable in comparison—perhaps lie at the basis of the dislike felt toward the Chinese by those who have no interest in the labor question. This I suppose is the point which more than all others excites the strong prejudice against them; and yet, so far as I can learn, they have given few grounds of complaint by infractions of the laws.

Their strange language and profound ignorance of our customs, government, religion, and speech, is the first of the two features, and tends to alienate them from the body of our citizens. Many of the points which a new comer wishes to learn about can only be explained by one of his countrymen, whose opportunities have been probably few to learn their nature and bearing, and his ignorance tends to perpetuate and strengthen that of his querist. The latter therefore enters upon his new life under some disadvantages, though the action of the companies and further intercourse with his comrades gradually remove some of the difficulties of his position. Yet the Chinese language tends to prevent those who talk it from assimilating with the people of other-lands, who are repelled by its uncouth sounds, and seldom have the time or the inclination to study and learn its intricate characters. Such has been the case among the Siamese and Malays, few of whom have learned Chinese; while the Chinese get a smattering of their languages, and then pride themselves on their superiority in being able to read and write their own tongue. This tends to keep up a clannish spirit among the immigrants; and to this day they remain distinct throughout the whole Indian Archipelago, Malacca, and Siam, and take special pains to keep so. It is perhaps true that unless they had combined in some way, and had some bond of union to resist the injustice of native rajahs and employers in those regions, they would have found life a slavery, and their industry a temptation to further oppression. Besides they are the superior race over the native laborers, even in Java and Luconia.

This language is so curious in its construction that it affords almost no help in learning another, and thus the sounds and sense of our alphabetic languages are alike sealed up to them until they can get the aid of the living voice to convey the one and explain the other. All the English learned at first must be viva voce, and this disability tends to prevent most of the immigrants ever learning more than a few words. This is bad for them; and it prevents those who wish to teach and help them from attempting to master Chinese. They often feel their isolation and weakness, and doubtless feel sore sometimes from receiving unjust treatment because they could not explain matters. I do not know how the difficulty is to be got over, for they must remain distinct from other people as long as they know no other language, and are compelled to come more or less under the control of their countrymen who do. I know that thousands are learning to read and talk English through the benevolent labors of Christians, and thereby the evil is lessened; yet this is a drawback to Chinese immigration that lies beyond the reach of laws to remedy.

The arrival on our shores of so many men, none of whom bring their families, and few of whom are married, is the second objectionable feature of this immigration. It throws them together in denser communities than is desirable, strengthening their worse peculiarities by preventing them from coming in contact with those who would make them better. They naturally cluster in small communities because they are so helpless is as individuals, at least until they have been long enough in the country to explain their wants. This, combined with their low ideas of morality, tends to neutralize the meliorating and elevating influences which would by degrees affect them if they were settlers with their families. As a whole, there is no prospect of their getting wives in the United States, and this adds a certain force to their longing to return home. In their own land they are remarkably domestic, and their regard for parents, wives, and children forms a pleasing trait in the national character. In California those who would like to keep house are, as it were, unable to do so.

How to obviate this objection attending this immigration needs an intimate acquaintance with the Chinese on the spot, and I venture no suggestion. I have heard two modes mentioned, one a discriminating poll-tax against those who remain unmarried after a certain number of years, the other to grant certain privileges to those who brought their families; but both are probably impracticable. Few persons probably wish to pass any regulations looking to the Chinese coming to or remaining in our country. Yet they are likely to come, and it is the boast of our nation that we offer a place for the people of every clime, and the boast is a just one. The evils hitherto attending their presence have been less than the benefits, and indirectly we have rather aggravated the evils by not doing something to segregate them, and to some degree prevent overcrowding. This end is one of general importance, though municipal and sanitary regulations for effecting it demand constant oversight to see them carried out, and strict measures to repress or remove the evil. The habits of the Chinese at home lead them to live closer than is good for health; but there the climate allows them to sleep and live out of doors much of the year, and this tendency is increased in our country by economical motives, and still more, probably, by necessity, as most of them have little or no choice in most cases where they shall lodge. Their employers probably take little thought, too, in general, how laborers hired for a job or a season get along in this respect, if they seem to be satisfied and do their work.

S. WELLS WILLIAMS,
Legation of the United States to China.

Peking, June 30, 1876.