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of encouraging the immigration of Chinese labourers for the Pacific railway. It was on behalf of this favourite project that he reprobated the rising feeling against Asiatics in California during his visit to that State in the following year, and until his death he remained strongly opposed to the reaction.1

The price paid by Mr. Burlingame for his facile success with the people of America was, therefore, the resentment of a majority of the foreign residents in the Far East, and a long period of obloquy under which his name suffered among his countrymen in the Far West.2 Yet, so far as he was accountable to his clients in drawing up this document, he may be said to have served them handsomely, for by it Chinese

me with no little satisfaction; but it goes without saying that he embodied the ideas of the Chinese envoys." ("A Cycle of Cathay," New York, 1896, p. 376.)

1"While in California in 1869 he did not hesitate to protest against the almost unanimous feeling pervading the community against Chinese immigration. He condemned the policy of exclusion and persistently maintained that immigration was an element of civilisation, especially to the Pacific coast, and that the attempt to suppress its invigorating forces would ultimately prove a failure." ("Seward's Works," vol. V, p. 50.) 2 One example from the voluminous literature on Chinese immigration to America will suffice: "We charge that Anson Burlingame sold his country's birthright for Chinese money. . . . For the purpose of obtaining prestige, with which he might work upon Great Britain in the interest of China and earn his fee, Mr. Burlingame induced his country to yield up a sovereign attribute never before surrendered by any free people. . . . It was conceived in fraud and chicane. It was negotiated at a time when no treaty was wanted by either country, and not for the purpose named in the treaty." ("Memorial to Congress," drafted by F. Swift and others, 1886.)

with

in America were to be treated exactly the right of naturalisation reserved - as were foreigners from Europe. China had achieved no such recognition for her subjects abroad from other Christian states. The mistake in the treaty, to which ensuing years lent an unpleasant emphasis, does not appear to have been the fault of the negotiator on the part of China so much as that of the one on the part of the United States. This was its needless turning into an express stipulation, requiring formal diplomacy and statutes to modify, a privilege which both parties to the contract already enjoyed to their own satisfaction by custom and tacit understanding. Such was the embarrassment Americans brought upon themselves by declaring the right of migration to be inalienable, and promising Chinese subjects in America what they had not themselves asked for -the same "immunities and exemptions" as we accorded the subjects of all other nations. We thus committed ourselves unnecessarily to a principle which, in a few years, we repudiated most shabbily. Subsequently the case for America was made worse by attempts of Congress and State legislatures to pass laws in plain contravention of this and other treaties. Under such indignities China, having no desire to encourage the emigration of

her subjects abroad, preserved a commendable patience, and conceded to us the further restrictions demanded of her. But her statesmen, though happily unconscious of the troubles in store for them, were justified in their hesitation to accept a compact which seemed to them superfluous at the time, and to offer them terms the fulfilment of which their experience of Western powers did not guarantee.

Professor Mayo Smith concludes his discussion of this phase of a highly controversial question as follows: "As a matter of fact, it does not appear that the Burlingame treaty changed the actual condition of things very much. The privileges granted to American citizens in China in regard to trade and religion were precisely those granted in the treaty of 1858. China promised to treat American citizens in the same way that she treated the subjects of the most favoured nation. She promised to do no more now. The reciprocal privileges granted to the Chinese of free exercise of their religion here, and to Americans of free entrance to the educational institutions of China, were of no practical value, because one was already enjoyed and the other would hardly be desired. The position of the Chinese here was precisely that which they had always shared with other foreigners. The

only privilege which they had not enjoyed or of which their enjoyment was doubtful (namely, of naturalisation) was expressly withheld by the treaty."

"1

1 "Emigration and Immigration," p. 233.

THE CLARENDON LETTER AND

BRITISH POLICY

F Mr. Burlingame had arrived in America

I'

with some sense of trepidation, he departed

in triumph. He had spoken to his countrymen with singleness of heart of a great purpose, and his appeal to their higher instincts had succeeded almost beyond his hopes. With no intimation of the reaction against the treaty provisions in favour of the Chinese, which were soon to excite the distrust of the Pacific States, he left his native land happy in the confidence that he had been instrumental in inducing a strong nation "to give a weaker one her rights from motives of impartial justice and generosity." In a sketch of his life contributed to the New York Times, a writer describes Mr. Burlingame on the eve of sailing for Europe, sitting up far into the morning with a few personal friends, speaking "of the future that he saw before China and the United States with rapturous enthusiasm, and of the Mission in Europe with hope, but not without concern.'

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1 J. L. Nevius, "China and the Chinese," New York, 1869, p. 440. 2 February 24, 1870.

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