rnment to exchange ratifications of the treaty unless
further discussion should be had with a view to shorten the period
stipulated in the treaty for the exclusion of Chinese laborers and to
change the conditions agreed on, which should entitle any Chinese
laborer who might go back to China to return again to the United States.

By a note from the charge d'affaires _ad interim_ of China to the
Secretary of State, received on the evening of the 25th ultimo (a copy
of which is herewith transmitted, together with the reply thereto), a
third amendment is proposed, whereby the certificate under which any
departing Chinese laborer alleging the possession of property in the
United States would be enabled to return to this country should be
granted by the Chinese consul instead of the United States collector,
as had been provided in the treaty.

The obvious and necessary effect of this last proposition would be
practically to place the execution of the treaty beyond the control of
the United States.

Article I of the treaty proposed to be so materially altered had in the
course of the negotiations been settled in acquiescence with the request
of the Chinese plenipotentiary and to his expressed satisfaction.

In 1886, as appears in the documents heretofore referred to, the Chinese
foreign office had formally proposed to our minister strict exclusion of
Chinese laborers from the United States without limitation, and had
otherwise and more definitely stated that no term whatever for exclusion
was necessary, for the reason that China would of itself take steps to
prevent its laborers from coming to the United States.

In the course of the negotiations that followed suggestions from the
same quarter led to the insertion in behalf of the United States of a
term of "thirty years," and this term, upon the representations of the
Chinese plenipotentiary, was reduced to "twenty years," and finally so
agreed upon.

Article II was wholly of Chinese origination, and to that alone owes its
presence in the treaty.

And it is here pertinent to remark that everywhere in the United States
laws for the collection of debts are equally available to all creditors
without respect to race, sex, nationality, or place of residence, and
equally with the citizens or subjects of the most favored nations and
with the citizens of the United States recovery can be had in any court
of justice in the United States by a subject of China, whether of the
la