Mr. Wu to Mr. Hay.
Washington, December 14, 1899.
Sir: I have great pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of your note of the 5th instant, in which you convey the welcome intelligence that the order of General Otis does recognize the right under treaty and the laws of the United States of the exempt class of Chinese to enter the Philippine Islands, and that the Secretary of War has called the attention of the commanding general to the complaint in my note of the 17th ultimo, and had instructed him not to permit any violation of the treaty.
I thank you for this renewed manifestation of the desire on your part to cause the treaty stipulations between the two nations to be observed, and I shall take pleasure in communicating the same to my Government. I beg, however, to recall to your attention the views set forth in my previous note respecting the exclusion of Chinese laborers from the Philippines, and particularly to my note of September 12 last, and to express the confident expectation that, with the happy prospect of the early establishment of peace and order, the military necessity which seems to have influenced the commanding general to issue the order of exclusion will soon cease to exist, and that the Chinese population and intercourse will be restored to the condition which existed for so many years previous to the American occupation of the islands.
Accept, etc.,