vises that the proper mode of determining in an authoritative and effectual way that the order has no validity or force is by application to the courts of the United States in the northern district of California, where full redress can be had. I am unable to share your apprehensions that it would be difficult to obtain redress in that way. The interests affected by the ordinance are, as you inform me by your note of the 24th ultimo, very considerable, and it is not thought that they will find any obstacle in asserting themselves before the judicial tribunals. In more than one case the courts of the United States in California have maintained the supremacy of the treaties with China against conflicting provisions, not only of the statutes, but also of the constitution of that State. As examples, I may refer to the cases of In re Ah Fong, third Sawyer's Reports, page 144, and Parrott's Chinese case in the sixth volume of the same series of reports, page 349. Accept, sir, etc., JAMES G. BLAINE. Mr. Pung to Mr. Blaine. CHINESE LEGATION, Washington, June 23, 1890. (Received June 23.) SIR: It affords me great pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of the note of the 14th instant, in which you honor me with a further discussion of the scope of article 3 of the treaty of 1880 and of the duty imposed therein upon the Government of the United States. While I share with you the regret you express that our views on these questions continue to be at variance, I experience great pleasure in being informed of the opinion of your learned colleague, the Attorney-General, that the ordinance of the city of San Francisco, which has occasioned the present correspondence, is not only contrary to the treaty stipulations with China, but also to the Constitution of your country, and, therefore, void. In view of this opinion, and of the further fact that for reasons unknown to me you have not as yet found it convenient to reply to the repeated notes of this legation concerning the broader question of the binding obligation and validity of the treaties celebrated between the two nations, I do not deem it necessary at this time to prolong the discussion of this subordinate subject. Thanking you for the courteous attention which you have given to my notes respecting it, I with pleasure renew, etc., Mr. Tsui to Mr. Blaine. PUNG KWANG YU. CHINESE LEGATION, Washington, September 14, 1890. SIR: At a late hour last night I received a telegram from the imperial consul-general at San Francisco, stating that information had been received by him from Chinese residents of Aberdeen, in the State of Washington, that the citizens of that town had notified the Chinese subjects living there that they must leave that place at once; and these subjects, feeling that their lives and property were in great peril, have appealed to this legation for the immediate protection of the Government of the United States. Believing that the case is one of urgency, requiring the prompt action of the authorities, I beg that you cause such measures to be taken by telegraph as will secure the Chinese subjects in that locality the full protection to which they are entitled under our treaties, and that injury to life and property may thereby be avoided. Trusting to be early advised of the steps which may be taken, I repeat, etc., TSUI KWO YIN. Mr. Wharton to Mr. Tsui. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 16, 1890. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 14th instant, in which you inform me that it is reported by the imperial consul-general of San Francisco that the Chinese residents of Aberdeen, in the State of Washington, have been notified by the citizens of that town to quit the place at once, and, in view of the apprehension felt by your countrymen that their lives are in danger, you ask that such measures be taken by telegraph as will suffice to protect Chinese subjects in that locality and avoid injury to life and property. I have also had the honor to see a telegram received by you this morning and brought to this Department by one of your attachés, which reads as follows: His Excellency TSUI, Chinese Legation: SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., 15th, Following telegram just received: "The Aberdeen citizens say our Chinese must go on September 23. Telegraph the Government to have them protected at once. Signed Woo Lee and Chinese at Hoquian, Wash." (No signature.) In view of these representations, I have hastened to send a telegram to His Excellency the governor of Washington, stating the facts as brought to the notice of this Department and counseling action to the end of preventing any disturbance of order.or violation of rights of Chinese subjects established at Aberdeen. Returning herewith the telegram left at this Department to day, WILLIAM F. WHARTON, Mr. Wharton to Mr. Tsui. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 19, 1890. SIR: I have the honor to apprise you, in connection with the Department's note of the 16th instant, of the receipt of a telegram from His Excellency Elisha P. Ferry, governor of the State of Washington, saying that he will use every means in his power to prevent any violation of law at Aberdeen. I avail myself, etc., WILLIAM F. WHARTON, Mr. Tsui to Mr. Blaine. CHINESE LEGATION, Washington, October 1, 1890. SIR: Under date of March 26 last, I was impelled by an urgent sense of duty to send you a note of some length, citing the notes which my predecessor had addressed to the late Secretary of State and to yourself respecting the status of our treaty relations as affected by the action of the last Congress of your country, and giving some additional reasons why, in my opinion, it was the imperative duty of your Government to furnish an early and comprehensive reply to the several notes of this legation. It has filled me with wonder that neither an acknowledgment of its receipt, nor a reply thereto, has up to this time been received. Knowing how carefully and courteously you observe all the requirements of diplomatic intercourse, I have not attributed this neglect to any personal choice on your part. I have persuaded myself that your silence has been enforced by some controlling reasons of state which have, in your opinion, made it prudent that you should still defer for a time the answer which my Government has for many months past been very anxious to receive. I would continue, out of personal regard to you, to exercise patience on the subject if I were permitted to do so. But I am sorry to say that this I can not do. Upon receipt of a copy of my note to you of March 26, 1890, my Government, so fully persuaded of the justice of the representations made by this legation, communicated with His Excellency, Minister Denby, and urged him to present to his Government the lively desire of the Chinese Government for an early reply to these representations, and that steps be taken to undo the wrongs being inflicted on Chinese subjects as a result of the act of October 1, 1888. And I have been instructed by the Tsung-li yamên to likewise again ask that early attention be given to the cited notes of this legation. In addition to this instruction, the losses and injuries being suffered by thousands of my countrymen, on account of the rigorous enforcement of the exclusion law of 1888, impel me to redouble my efforts to secure some redress and restore our treaties to respect and observance. I beg you, Mr. Secretary, to regard this, my present note, not as an act of embarrassment to you, but as a friendly effort on my part to restore and reaffirm the former cordial relations which have existed between our two countries. The old nation, with its hundreds of millions of people, on the other side of the ocean, extends its hand across the great waters to the young nation in front of it, with its wonderful development in population and resources, and asks for a continuance of friendship and commercial intercourse upon the basis of treaty rights and reciprocal justice. Our sages and statesmen for ages past have taught our nation principles of justice and good faith, which, upon establishing diplomatic relations with the nations of the western world, we found to agree with the code of international law as framed by the writers and statesmen of your country; and having learned, through the disinterested friendship which hitherto had marked the conduct of your Government in its relations to China, to regard your nation as a mode! in the practice which should control governments in their reciprocal intercourse, we accepted its code of international law; and to this code we appeal in the settlement of the difficulties which have unhappily arisen between us, and which it is the anxious desire of the Im perial Government to have adjusted in the speediest manner possible. In the interest, therefore, of our past friendship, and to promote and cement more firmly our good relations, I again communicate to you the respectful request of my Government that the cited notes of this legation may have your early attention, and that I may be favored as promptly as possible with the views and instructions of the Government of the United States. I improve this opportunity, etc., TSUI KWO YIN. Mr. Blaine to Mr. Tsui. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 1st instant, in which you recur to the subject of the note addressed by you to the Department on the 26th of March last, to which no formal reply has been made. I am happy to confirm your surmise that the delay in making such a reply has not been due to any neglect or lack of appreciation of the representations you have made or of the importance of the peservation of the cordial and traditional relations of friendship which have subsisted between our two governments. The questions which you present have been and are now the subject of careful consideration on the part of this Government, and I hope to be able at an early day to convey to you the views of the President in an ample and formal manner. In communicating to you this expectation, I desire to assure you of my appreciation of the sentiments of amity that pervade the note to which I now have the honor to reply. Accept, etc., JAMES G. BLAINE. Mr. Tsui to Mr. Blaine. CHINESE LEGATION, Washington, December 4, 1890. (Received December 5.) SIR: From the several notes which have been addressed to your Department by this legation since the passage by the Congress of the United States of the exclusion act of October 1, 1888, it is known to you that my Government has earnestly desired that that honorable body should undo that act of hardship and treaty abrogation. I watched with interest the proceedings of the last session, and at its close it became my unpleasant duty to inform my Government that it had adjourned without taking any action looking to the repeal or modification of the act of 1888. I am now in receipt of instructions from the Imperial Government, directing me to convey to you the disappointment it has experienced at the intelligence communicated by me, and to express to you the hope that during the session which convened on the 1st instant Congress may take such action as will assure the Imperial Government of the desire of that of the United States to maintain in full force and vigor the treaties entered into between the two nations, and thus renew and strengthen the friendly relations which have so long existed. I hope that you will not interpret this note into any manifestation of impatience at the nonreceipt of the reply which was promised in your note to me of October 6 last. You will, I am quite sure, understand the natural desire of my Government (which makes it my duty at this time to again address you) to relieve the many thousands of my countrymen from the sad situation in which they have been placed by the passage of the law cited. The records of the custom-house at San Francisco alone show that over 20,000 Chinese subjects who had left their temporary homes and business in the United States, bearing with them, under the seal of the United States, certificates of their right to return, were, in violation of these certificates and of solemn treaty guaranties, absolutely and without notice excluded from the United States by that law. And so severely was that law enforced that those Chinese who were on the high sea at the time it was passed were forbidden to land at San Francisco and were driven back to China. The great pecuniary loss which these Chinese subject shave sustained on account of being excluded from their temporary homes and business in this country has been regarded by my Government as a serious hardship. Besides these, the law has been very oppressive and unjust in its effects upon a still greater number of Chinese subjects. Under the proprovisions of the treaty of 1880, the Chinese laborers then in the United States were guarantied the right "to go and come of their own free will and accord," but the act of 1888 nullifies this stipulation, and the Chinese laborers are therefore denied the privilege of a visit to their native land, or it must be made at the sacrifice of all their business interests in this country. In view of the injustice and loss which has been.and still is being inflicted by the operations of this law, my Government has felt it necessary that I should again make known to you its earnest desire that something should be done to alleviate the injuries being suffered on account of its passage. I need hardly add that this representation is not made out of any disposition to aggravate the present unsatisfactory condition of our relations, but with the earnest hope that it may lead to some settlement which will cement our old friendship and create new relations of harmony and freer commercial intercourse. I improve the opportunity, etc. TSUI KWO YIN. |