ess, approved on May 6, 1882
(see 22 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 58), and amended July 5, 1884 (23
U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 115), suspended for ten years the coming of
Chinese laborers to the United States, and regulated the going and
coming of such Chinese laborers as were at that time in the United
States.

It was, however, soon made evident that the mercenary greed of the
parties who were trading in the labor of this class of the Chinese
population was proving too strong for the just execution of the law, and
that the virtual defeat of the object and intent of both law and treaty
was being fraudulently accomplished by false pretense and perjury,
contrary to the expressed will of both Governments.

To such an extent has the successful violation of the treaty and the
laws enacted for its execution progressed that the courts in the Pacific
States have been for some time past overwhelmed by the examination of
cases of Chinese laborers who are charged with having entered our ports
under fraudulent certificates of return or seek to establish by perjury
the claim of prior residence.

Such demonstration of the inoperative and inefficient condition of the
treaty and law has produced deep-seated and increasing discontent among
the people of the United States, and especially with those resident on
the Pacific Coast. This has induced me to omit no effort to find an
effectual remedy for the evils complained of and to answer the earnest
popular demand for the absolute exclusion of Chinese laborers having
objects and purposes unlike our own and wholly disconnected with
American citizenship.

Aided by the presence in this country of able and intelligent diplomatic
and consular officers of the Chinese Government, and the representations
made from time to time by our minister in China under the instructions
of the Department of State, the actual condition of public sentiment and
the status of affairs in the United States have been fully made known to
the Government of China.

The necessity for remedy has been fully appreciated by that Government,
and in August, 1886, our minister at Peking received from the Chinese
foreign office a communication announcing that China, of her own accord,
proposed to establish a system of strict and absolute prohibition of her
laborers, under heavy penalties, from coming to the United States, and
likewise to prohibit the return to the United States of any Chinese
laborer who had at any time gone