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
laboring or any other class.
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