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  4. Document 64

No. 64.
Mr. Frelinghuysen to Mr. Tsai Kwoh Ching.

Department of State,
Washington, October 17, 1884.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 4th instant, in regard to a party of Chinese merchants who have lately [Page 117] arrived at San Francisco, with their families, in the steamer City of Peking, and who have been refused permission to land by the collector of customs, on the ground that their certificates, being those issued under the act of 1882, do not conform to those required by the supplementary act of July 5, 1884.

I accordingly referred a copy of your note to the Secretary of the Treasury for his consideration.

By a letter from the Acting Secretary, of the 10th instant, it appears the collector at San Francisco was directed by telegraph to report the facts in respect of your complaint. His report confirmed your statement that the Chinese had not been allowed to land because they had not the certificates prescribed by the act of Congress of July 5, 1884. It was also stated that twenty six claimed the right to land on Chinese consular certificates issued to them at San Francisco prior to the passage of the act mentioned, and that the remainder had no certificates of any character.

This Department is informed that the judges of the United States circuit court at San Francisco have recently disagreed as to whether any evidence other than that prescribed by the statute of July, 1884, can be accepted as authority for permitting the landing in the United States of those Chinese who may fall under the provisions of that act.

This disagreement makes it necessary to have the question decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, to which it has been referred, and the executive branch of the Government, while inhibited by constitutional precepts from taking any step which might seem to interfere with the complete independence of the judicial branch, will endeavor to cause a speedy decision to be reached, in order that no undue hardships may accrue through delay, to those persons whose statutory rights are in question.

Accept, &c.,

FRED’K T. FRELINGHUYSEN.