behalf and offered to give a guaranty or bond for the good faith of the boy, but their offer was refused by the collector, who stated that his instructions from the Treasury Department were that only those Chinese who intend to pursue some of the higher branches of study or for some particular profession could be admitted.

I am advised that an appeal has been taken to the Secretary of the Treasury, and that the boy is detaiz.ed at the quarantine station awaiting the Secretary's decision. In view of this action it becomes my duty to ask your kind intervention with your honorable colleague, the Secretary of the Treasury, to the end that the treaty between the two Governments may not be violated in this case.

In examining the opinion of the Solicitor of the Treasury upon which the ruling of the collector is based I find that he defines a student to be "a person who (1) intends to pursue some of the higher branches of study, or one who (2) seeks to be fitted for some particular profession or occupation for which facilities of study are not afforded in his own country; one (3) for whose support and maintenance in this country, as a student, provision has been made, and who (4), upon completion of his studies, expects to return to China." (Regulations relating to exclusion of Chinese, 1900, p. 35.)

May I venture the assertion that this definition with its various conditions reads very strangely in contrast with the simple phrase of the treaty Suppose such a clause as that just quoted had been proposed for insertion in the treaty, can you, Mr. Secretary, for a moment believe that the Chinese negotiator would have accepted? I think you will agree with me that the officials of one of the parties to a treaty can not attach conditions to its stipulations which that party would not have proposed in the negotiations and which the other party would not have entertained.

If the construction given by the Treasury officials is to be maintained by your Government, you must admit that it is a virtual nullification of the treaty. Under this ruling a Chinese student can only be admitted to the United States to pursue a course of study for a profession or occupation for which facilities of study are not afforded in his own country." Any one at all familiar with China must know that there were in existence in that Empire when the treaty was made institutions of learning where instruction is given in English and Chinese in almost every branch of education-in medicine, in divinity, in international law and the science of government, in civil and mining engineering, in the science of navigation, in the military art, and in the other various branches of sciences and belles-lettres.

It is not a sufficient reason to give to the application of a Chinese student who comes to the United States to make himself more perfect in English to say that there are facilities in the place of his home, in China, or Hongkong, where he can learn this language. There are throughout the United States, in every city and town, teachers of the French and German languages, but I understand that it is a common practice among the well-to-do American families to send their children to France or Germany, at great expense, to acquire a more perfect knowledge of the tongue there spoken.

It would be just as proper and well founded a reason upon which to base the rejection of a Chinese student to enter the United States for the study of medicine or theology to say that there are institutions in China for such study.

And it

The Solicitor of the Treasury must know that many centuries before the nations of northern Europe began to give attention to education the Chinese Empire was the seat of learning, with a literature and art which is even to-day the admiration of the western countries. is because of the thirst of the Chinese youth for knowledge that, with the modern facilities for travel and exchange of ideas, they seek admittance to the schools of this enlightened nation. It is the same spirit which has taken so many American youths to Paris, Berlin, and other seats of learning. No such line is drawn upon the young men of this country when they land in France or Germany.

Anyone at all conversant with the social conditions of China must know that there is a broad and well-marked distinction between the student and the laboring classes. The authorities who give the certificate and the consul who visés it can readily discriminate between them. But in the present case there is no question as to the genuineness of the certificate or the status of the applicant. The boy is to be rejected and sent back on his long journey because he could find the same facilities for education at his home that he seeks in Honolulu. Certainly, Mr. Secretary, you and your enlightened colleague, the Secretary of the Treasury, must admit that the reason for this decision is unjustifiable and in violation of the treaty. I hope, therefore, that, actuated by the spirit of fairness which has so distinguished your official conduct, you will lay the present case before your colleague and urge him to give to the appeal his personal attention, in the full assurance on my part that he will overrule the unreasonable decision of the collector at Honolulu.

Accept, etc.,

WU TING-FANG.

Mr. Hay to Mr. Wu.

No. 187.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 3, 1901.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 214, of the 28th ultimo, requesting that permission be granted to the Chinese student, Tong Tseng, whose case is described in your note, to land at Honolulu, to which place he goes for the purpose of pursuing an educational course.

In reply I have the honor to inform you that I have sent a copy of your note to the Secretary of the Treasury for his information, and have commended the case to his consideration.

Accept, etc.,

JOHN HAY.

Mr. Hay to Mr. Wu.

No. 192.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 14, 1901.

SIR: Referring to your note No. 214, of the 28th ultimo, requesting that permission be granted to the Chinese student, Tong Tseng, to land at Honolulu, whither he has gone for the purpose of pursuing an educational course, I have the honor to inform you that the Depart

ment is in receipt of a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, dated the 10th instant, in which he says that papers on appeal have been received from the collector of customs at Honolulu in the case of a Chinese boy named Tong Chong, who arrived at that place by the steamship Gaelic on October 22 last; and that the Treasury Department, in a decision given on the 10th instant, has directed that the said Tong Chong be permitted to land.

The Secretary of the Treasury adds that it is assumed that the boy Tong Chong is identical with the one named in your note as Tong Tseng, who, you state, arrived by the Gaelic on October 21, inasmuch as all the other circumstances of Tong Chong's case agree practically with those stated in your note.

Accept, etc.,

JOHN HAY.

Mr. Wu to Mr. Hay.

No. 220.]

CHINESE LEGATION, Washington, December 16, 1901. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 192, of the 14th instant, informing me that the Treasury Department has directed that Tong Tseng, or Tong Chong, a Chinese student, who arrived at Honolulu by the steamship Gaelic in last October, be permitted to land, in a decision given on the 10th instant on his appeal. I beg to express my appreciation of the justice of the course pursued by the Treasury Department in this case, and to request that you will kindly convey my thanks to the Secretary of the Treasury.

As to the slight confusion caused by the different spelling of the boy's name, referred to by the Secretary of the Treasury, this is due partly to the dialectic variation in the Chinese pronunciation of the name and partly to the imperfect representation of the Chinese sounds by English letters. The Secretary of the Treasury is right in assuming that it is one and the same boy, whether his name is given as Tong Tseng or Tong Chong.

Accept, etc.,

WU TING-FANG.

Mr. Hay to Mr. Wu.

No. 196.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 30, 1901.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 220, of the 16th instant, expressing your appreciation of the justness of the course pursued by the Treasury Department in the case of the Chiness student Tong Tseng.

In reply, I have the honor to inform you that a copy of your note has been sent to the Secretary of the Treasury for his information.

Accept, etc.,

JOHN HAY.

EXCLUSION LAWS

No. 218.]

COMPLAINTS OF ALLEGED HARSH AND UNFAIR ENFORCEMENT.

Mr. Wu to Mr. Hay.

CHINESE LEGATION, Washington, December 9, 1901.

SIR: The President having signified to me in the private audience with which he honored me the other day his desire that I should furnish him with certain specific cases of injustice and hardship suffered by the subjects of China by reason of the rigid enforcement of the Chinese exclusion laws, I have the honor to inclose a memorandum which I have prepared for this purpose and to request that you will kindly lay it before the President for his consideration and for such action as he may deem proper.

Accept, etc.,

WU TING-FANG.

[Inclosure.]

MEMORANDUM.

Attorney-General Griggs, in an opinion addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, dated the 15th of July, 1898, says:

"It may be stated, comprehensively, that the result of the whole body of these laws and decisions thereon is to determine that the true theory is not that all Chinese persons may enter this country who are not forbidden, but that only those are entitled to enter who are expressly allowed."

In pursuance of this opinion, the Treasury Department issued instructions to collectors of customs in the following terms:

"Collectors of customs are directed to admit only Chinese whose occupation or station clearly indicates that they are members of the exempt class of Chinese named in Article III of the treaty with China, viz, 'Chinese subjects, being officials, teachers, students, merchants, or travelers for curiosity or pleasure,' and to deny admission to Chinese persons described as salesmen, clerks, buyers, bookkeepers, accountants, managers, storekeepers, apprentices, agents, cashiers, physicians, proprietors of restaurants, etc."

To deny admission to other classes of Chinese than laborers is clearly contrary to the letter and spirit of the laws and treaties respecting the immigration of Chinese to the United States and to the uninterrupted practice of the Executive Departments of the United States for a period of sixteen years from 1882 to 1898.

Since the issuance of the instructions by the Treasury Department, in pursuance of Attorney-General Griggs's opinion above referred to, the rights of even the so-called exempt classes of Chinese have been constantly ignored and denied by officers of the United States Government charged with the execution of the laws, as may be seen in the following cases:

CASE I.

Mr. Lew Yuk Lin, acting consul-general of China at Singapore, in the Straits Settlements, and Commander Chen En Tao, naval attaché to the Chinese legation at London, were proceeding via Vancouver, Montreal, and New York to London, England, on the business of the Imperial Government. They arrived at Malone, N. Y., on the evening of December 26, 1899, and were met on the train by Mr. J. Gibbs and Mr. F. G. Shufelt, deputy collectors at Malone. These officers informed them that they had received telegraphic instructions from the collector at Plattsburg, N. Y., to detain them at Malone until instructions could be obtained from the Treasury Department at Washington. The two Chinese officials endeavored to satisfy the deputy collectors of their status as officials of the Chinese Government by exhibiting to them their credentials and, in addition, certificates issued to them by the British authorities at Hongkong and Shanghai, and by the United States consul-general at Hongkong, showing conclusively their official character and their right to exemption from the operation of the exclusion laws. To their great surprise and in spite of their protest,

the deputy collectors insisted upon detaining them, and they were forced to get off the train and pass the night in a hotel. For over twenty-four hours they were kept under surveillance and were not allowed to continue their journey until remonstrance had been made by this legation and telegraphic instructions received from Washington. Even then no satisfaction was tendered them for the inconvenience and extra expense they had been thus put to by reason of their detention and for the great humiliation and indignity to which they had been subjected.

CASE II.

Fei Chi Ho and Kung Hsiang Hsi, two Chinese students, arrived at San Francisco September 12, 1901, by the steamer Doric, in the charge of Miss Luella Miner, a teacher in the North China College of the American Board of Foreign Missions at Tungchow, near Peking. They had passports certifying to their status as students, issued by Earl Li Hung Chang, viceroy of the province of Chihli, and viséd by Mr. Ragsdale, United States consul at Tientsin. According to Miss Miner's statement, Fei Chi Ho studied first in the primary schools and then for eight years in the North China College and Academy, where he graduated in May, 1898. From that time until the Boxer outbreak in the summer of 1900, he taught in the Boys' Boarding Schools at Taiku and Fenchow, in the province of Shansi. Kung Hsiang Hsi is a native of Taiku, in Shansi, and studied many years in the mission school there. In 1896 he entered the North China College and Academy, and had completed the junior year when he returned to his home in Shansi in June, 1900, expecting to return and finish his college course the following year. Both these young men were in Shansi at the time of the general outbreak against foreigners in that province, and were conspicuous for their devotion and faithfulness to their American friends, whom they refused to desert, though for weeks they were repeatedly surrounded by Boxer mobs. When the last of the missionary bands was killed on August 14, 1900, Fei Chi Ho escaped, and, after unspeakable hardships, made his way to Tientsin, bringing the first authentic tidings of the fate that had befallen the Shansi missionaries. His father, mother, and other relatives were killed by the Boxers. The other young man, Kung Hsiang Hsi, was intrusted by the two American ladies, Miss Bird and Miss Partridge, a few days before their death, with letters to their friends. These he concealed for twelve months, at the risk of his life, before it was possible for him to carry them over the borders of the province of Shansi. He had with him also a few articles from the personal effects of Miss Bird for her mother.

To these young men the collector of customs at San Francisco refused admission on the ground that their passports were not in proper form. The entreaties of Miss Miner and the intercession of the Chinese consul-general at San Francisco in their behalf were of no avail. They were ordered to be deported. The case was appealed to the Treasury Department, which confirmed the decision of the collector. As they were in imminent danger of being sent back to China, it was arranged, at the last moment, through the intercession of an influential friend, that the young men should be permitted to land on the bond of the Chinese consul-general at San Francisco, pending their sending to China for the proper certificates.

CASE III.

Tong Tseng, a boy 15 years old, arrived at Honolulu, by the steamer Gaelic, on October 21, 1901, bearing a proper certificate, issued by the British authorities at Hongkong and viséd by the United States consul-general at that port. His application for admission was rejected by the collector of customs at Honolulu, not because of any defect in his certificate or any doubt as to his character as student, but because when questioned he answered that the purpose of his coming to Honolulu was to pursue his studies at the Chinese-American school. His friends and the American principal of the school exerted themselves in his behalf, and offered to give a guaranty or bond for the good faith of the boy, but their offer was refused by the collector, who stated that his instructions from the Treasury Department were that only those Chinese who intend to pursue some of the higher branches of study or prepare themselves for some particular profession could be admitted.

CASE IV.

Yee Ah Lum and some thirty Chinese merchants of Canton came to the United States in August, 1899, for the purpose of buying American goods. Their applications

Complete report of this case printed, p. 68.