ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 125 



treaty does serve, perhaps I should say in addition, to negative 

 special grounds of exclusion which sometimes exist. For instance 

 both the United States and Canada, while extending the freest 

 possible hospitahty to travel and residence and trade on the part 

 of all the people of the earth, do make an exception based upon a 

 special gro\md regarding the cooHes, the laborers from the Orient; 

 and that is based upon a special ground which is recognized by the 

 Oriental nations. It is that immigration en masse, which amounts 

 to peaceful invasion of a country by a great body of peopb who 

 would take possession of, and occupy a portion of the territory 

 to the exclusion of the natives, is different in kind from the exercise 

 of ordinary travel and trade rights; and upon that principle is 

 recognized a specific right of exclusion not inconsistent with the 

 according of the general rights of trade and travel. But as that 

 custom of the civihzed world which gradually crystallizes into the 

 law of nations grows, more and more, it is necessary for a nation, 

 for its own self-respect, for the preservation of its standing among 

 the nations of the earth, for the preservation of its own interests, 

 for the continuance of those relations of. intercourse, of trade, which 

 are necessary to its existence in the family of nations, to give a 

 reason for such an exception. The whole burden of proof has 

 changed. Instead of giving a reason for admitting, if we exclude 

 now we must give reasons for the exclusion. The strict right of 

 exclusion remains, but it is a right that no nation can justify 

 itself imless it has a specific reason. And the necessity of ex- 

 pressing a reservation of the right of municipal control over the 

 privilege which is thus exercised freely by all the people of the 

 earth, when an expression of the imperfect right of intercourse 

 is put into a treaty, in my judgment no longer exists; but it did 

 exist in 18 18, because this general principle of free and universal 

 intercourse and trade had not then reached its development; 

 and it was through the rule, it was • through the great range 

 and practically universal custom of putting into treaties granting 

 such rights, the express reservation of the right of municipal 

 control that this general rule of intercourse among states grew 

 up, and the people of the world became accustomed to it; and 

 the custom, with all its incidents, grew out of this great range 

 of conventions. 



