Speech #470037960

I have been somewhat surprised. upon looking at these facts. that the Burlingame treaty ever found a place in our relations with China. With this sort of population that I have described. with this local legislation. with this utter degradation and denial of the rights of these people under contracts enforced by Chinese laws. why should the representatives of America have met the Emperor of Chin a and agreed that in consideration of certain commercial privileges the exclusive people of that country should be allowed to come without limit to America.while Americans were not to be allowed to go into that country except under certain conditions and only into certain portions of it? What could have been the inducements offered by that exclusive people to lead our representatives to place in a treaty such provisions in relation to immigration from China I Was it because that government felt that its population was overcrowded and that they would find a safetyvalve in this direction ? Was it because the dominant classes of that country. dealing with the capitalists of other lands. felt that not only in Peru and in the Spanish provinces but also in America they could find a remuneration by dealing in the poorer classes of their countrymen? Was that the object of the free immigration of Chinese in the treaty? I can see no other. They distinctly provided and we covenanted that when they came here they should form no part of our own people. they should enjoy no rights of citizenship here.