File No. 819.55/8.

The American Minister to the Secretary of State.

No. 469.]

Sir: Referring to my despatches Nos. 385 of March 27th and 417 of April 18th last, both reporting as to the recently passed law prohibiting the immigration of Chinese, Turks, Syrians and North Africans of Turkish origin and my good offices for the protection of Chinese interest in connection with this law, I have the honor to inform you that Mr. Ow Yang King, Chinese Consul General, called upon me a few days ago and informed me that he had heard that the proposed regulations for the application of this law were about to be completed. He also showed me a letter addressed to Señor Lefevre, Minister for Foreign Affairs, which he proposed to hand to him, referring to the conferences at which he, Señor Lefevre, Dr. Morales, then Minister of Finance, and I were present, reported in my despatch No. 385, and requesting that certain points which he enumerated might be incorporated in these regulations. I enclose a copy of this letter1 from which it will be noted that most of these points had already been brought up at the conferences referred to. At his request I accompanied Mr. King to the Foreign Office and expressed the hope to Señor Lefevre that Mr. King’s letter would be given full consideration.

About a week later Mr. King again called and gave me a copy of the proposed decree containing the regulations for the application of this immigration law, which he stated had been sent to him by Señor Lefevre. He stated that instead of making the application of this law as easy as possible for the Chinese, as formerly promised by Dr. Morales, the decree made it a great deal harder. In explanation he handed me a copy of a letter, which he had addressed to Señor Lefevre, containing a list of objections to the regulations. I thereupon [Page 1111] again accompanied him to the Foreign Office where he handed this letter to Señor Lefevre, a rather prolonged discussion then following. The substance of this discussion appears fairly clearly in the memorandum of it1 which Mr. King has furnished to me at my request. From the objections in Mr. King’s letter and the memorandum it will be noted that some of the agreements of Señor Lefevre and Dr. Morales, reported in my despatch No. 385, have not been satisfactorily carried out. Certain further changes desired by Mr. King were however agreed to by Señor Lefevre during our discussion and Señor Lefevre also was able to explain certain other provisions of the regulations so that Mr. King admitted that they were practically unobjectionable. Throughout the conversation Señor Lefevre showed the greatest courtesy in discussing Mr. King’s objections and appeared to desire to meet them in so far as possible. He finally assured Mr. King that after the regulations went into effect further changes might be made in them if they appeared to be unnecessarily severe. In any case he stated that he would always be ready to attend personally to any complaints brought to him by Mr. King and assured Mr. King that the regulations would be applied fairly and without animosity or any unfriendly spirit.

Mr. King expressed his sincere thanks to me for my good offices, stating that they had materially assisted his endeavors to secure fair treatment for his people.

I have [etc.]

H. Percival Dodge.
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