CONGRESS. (CHINESE MATTERS PENSIONS.) 



255 



from curionity, together with their body and house- 

 hold servants, . . . shall be allowed to go and come 

 of their own free will and accord, and shall bo ac- 

 corded all the rights, privileges, immunities, and ex- 

 emptions which are accorded to the citizens and sub- 

 jects of the most favored nation." 



Section 6 of the amended Chinese immigration act 

 of 1884 purports to secure this treaty right to the ex- 

 empted classes named by means of prescribed certifi- 

 cates of their status, which certificates shall be the 

 prima facie and the sole permissible evidence to es - 

 tablish a right of entry into the United States. But 

 it provides in terms for the issuance of certificates in 

 two cases only : 



(a) Chinese subjects departing from a port of 

 China ; and 



(b) Chinese persons (i. e., of the Chinese race) who 

 may at the time be subjects of some foreign govern- 

 ment other than China, and who may depart for the 

 United States from the ports of such other foreign 

 government. 



A statute is certainly most unusual which, pur- 

 porting to execute the provisions of a treaty with 

 China in respect of Chinese subjects, enacts strict 

 formalities as regards the subjects of other govern- 

 ments than that of China. 



It is sufficient that I should call the earnest atten- 

 tion of Congress to the circumstance that the statute 

 makes no provision whatever for the somewhat nu- 

 merous class of Chinese persons who z retaining their 

 Chinese subjection in some countries other than 

 China, desire to come from such countries to the 

 United States. 



Chinese merchants have trading operations of mag- 

 nitude throughput the world. They do not become 

 citizens or subjects of the country where they may 

 temporarily reside and trade ; they continue to be sub- 

 jects of China, and to them the explicit exemption of 

 the treaty applies. Yet, if such a Chinese subject, 

 the head of a mercantile house at Hong-Kong, or Yo- 

 kohama, or Honolulu, or Havana, or Colon, desires 

 to come from any of these places to the United States 

 he is met with the requirement that he must produce 

 a certificate, in prescribed form and in the English 

 tongue, issued by the Chinese Government. If there 

 be at the foreign place of his residence no representa- 

 tive of the Chinese Government competent to issue 

 a certificate in the prescribed form, he can obtain 

 none, and is under the provisions of the present law 

 unjustly debarred from entry into the United States. 

 Hi's usual Chinese passport will not suffice, for it is 

 not in the form which the act prescribes shall be the 

 sole permissible evidence of his right to land. And 

 he can obtain no such certificate from the government 

 of his place of residence, because he is not a subject 

 or citizen thereof, " at the time," or at any time. 



There being, therefore, no statutory provision pre- 

 scribing the. terms upon which Chinese persons, resi- 

 dent in foreign countries but not subjects or citizens 

 of such countries, may prove their status and rights as 

 members of the exempted classes in the absence of a 

 Chinese representative in such country, the Secretary 

 of the Treasury, in whom the execution of the act of 

 July 5, 1884 was vested, undertook to remedy the 

 omission by directing the revenue officers to recognize 

 as lawful certificates those issued in favor of Chinese 

 subjects by the Chinese consular and diplomatic offi- 

 cers at the foreign port of departure, when visaed by 

 the United States representative thereat. This ap- 

 pears to be a just application of the spirit of the law, 

 although enlarging its letter, and in adopting this rule 

 he was controlled by the authority of high judicial de- 

 cisions as to what evidence is necessary to establish 

 the fact that an individual Chinaman belongs to the 

 exempted class. 



He, however, went beyond the spirit of the act and 

 the judicial decisions, by providing, in a circular 

 dated Jan. 14, 1885, for the original issuance of such 

 a certificate by the United States consular officer at 

 the port of departure, in the absence of a Chinese 



diplomatic or consular representative thereat. For 

 it is clear that the act of Congress contemplated the 

 intervention of the United States consul only in a 

 supervisory capacity, his function being to check the 

 proceeding and see that no abuse of the privilege fol- 

 lowed. The power or duty of original certification is 

 wholly distinct from that supervisory function. It 

 either dispenses with the foreign certificate altogether, 

 leaving the consular visa to stand alone and sufficient, 

 or else it combines in one official act the distinct 

 functions of certification and verification of the fact 

 certified. 



The official character attaching to the consular cer- 

 tification contemplated by the unamended circular of 

 Jan. 14, 1885, is to be borne in mind. It is not 

 merely prima-facie evidence of the status of the 

 bearer : such as the courts may admit in their discre- 

 tion ; it was prescribed as an official attestation, on 

 the strength of which the customs officers at the port 

 of entry were to admit the bearer without further ad- 

 judication of his status unless question should arise as 

 to the truth of the certificate itself. 



It became, therefore, necessary to amend the cir- 

 cular of Jan. 14. 1885, and this was done on the 13th 

 of June following, by striking out the clause pre- 

 scribing original certification 01 status by the United 

 States consuls. The effect of this amendment is to 

 deprive any certificate the United States consuls may 

 issue, of the value it purported to possess, as sole per- 

 missible evidence under the statute when its issuance 

 was prescribed by Treasury regulations. There is, 

 however, nothing to prevent consuls giving certificates 

 of facts within their knowledge, to be received as 

 evidence in the absence of statutory authentication. 



The complaint of the Chinese minister, in his note 

 of March 24, 1886, is that the Chinese merchant. Lay 

 Sang, of the house of King Lee & Co., of San Fran- 

 cisco, having arrived at San Francisco from Hong- 

 Kong, and exhibited a certificate of the United States 

 consul at Hong-Kong as to his status as a merchant 

 and consequently exempt under the treaty, was re- 

 fused permission to land, and was sent back to Hong- 

 Kong by the steamer which brought him. While the 

 certificate he bore was doubtless insufficient under the 

 present law, it is to be remembered that there is at 

 Hong- Kong no representative of the Government of 

 China competent or authorized to issue the certificate 

 required by the statute. The intent of Congress to 

 legislate in execution of the treaty, is thus defeated 

 by a prohibition directly contrary to the treaty ; and 

 conditions are exacted which, in the words of the 

 Supreme Court hereinbefore quoted, " it was physi- 

 cally impossible to perform." 



This anomalous feature of the act should be re- 

 formed as speedily as possible, in order -that the oc- 

 currence of such cases may be avoided, and the impu- 

 tation removed which would otherwise rest upon the 

 good faith of the United States in the execution of 

 their solemn treaty engagements. 



GKOVER CLEVELAND. 



EXECUTIVE MANSION, 



WASHINGTON, April 6, 1886. 



Pensions. Jan. 20, 1886, the House took up 

 for consideration the bill to increase the pen- 

 sion of widows, minor children, and dependent 

 relatives of soldiers and sailors. Mr. Matson, 

 of Indiana, who had charge of the measure, 

 said: 



"The bill which has been read has been 

 very thoroughly considered by the Committee 

 on Invalid Pensions in this Congress and re- 

 ported unanimously by that committee. The 

 same committee in the Forty-eighth Congress 

 considered the same proposition and reported 

 it unanimously. The provisions of the bill are 

 very simple. It provides that widows of sol- 



