Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-11-24
TIE ALLEGED CHINESE TREATY.

An unofficial and therefore untrustwor-
thy account of the new treaty with China
said to have been negotiated by the Com
mission appointed by President Hayes, has
been received. 1t intimates that the Com.
nissioners was SO barren of resources as
TO take that singular measure known as the
fifteen passenger bill as basis for its
negotiations. The so-ealled fifteen pas
senger bill was a capricious attempt to
deal in an arbitrary way with the question
of Chinese immigration. Why the num-
Der fifteen should have been selected for
this purpose it is difficult to understand.
At The best ii was a sort of Alex
andrian method Of solving the Cor
dian knot, and being, as must
be presumed, hasty device, it was
never regarded by those who had studied
the situation as adequate or defnitive.
1t certainly appears strange that special
Commission, sent with much pomp and
ceremony to Pekin, should have been I'M
able to advance single step beyond this
fifteen passenger law. Did the Commits
sioners possibly regard that bill as en-
bodying the very flower and quintessence
of human wisdom, or did Chinese diplo.
macy drive them into corner? 1t would
seem that if the fifteen passenger law was
the best that could be devised, it might
have been proposed TO the Pelin Gov
eminent without sending a special
Commission there to demonstrate the
poverty of American craftsmanship.
When that law was introduced
to Congress it was pointed out that ii
could not possibly produce the effects an.
ticipated from it. If the arguments then
adduced against that measure were sound,
we fail to see what satisfaction the alleged
new treaty can give. OF course we must
bear in mind the possibility that the pro
visions OF the new treaty have not been
made public with accuracy and fullness,
and therefore we refrain from expressing
ourselves as we should if the official copy
OF the instrument were before u.s. All that
can safely or properly be said ON the
strength of the statements thus far given
to the public is that the Commission ap-
pears to have facilitated its negotiations in
a manner somewhat new TO diplomacy.
We had expected, from the known talent
OF the Commissioners, a broad, profound
and comprehensive scheme Of international
relations, which, while keeping theavenuea
of commerce duly open, would have
guaranteed protection to white labor in
the United States. It seems to us that
this was the desire and purpose of the
nation in appointing the Commission. But
unless the fragmentary accounts of the
Commission very much nisrepresent the
facts, somethingquite different from this has
been achieved. The fifteen passenger act
has, in fact, been metamorphosed into a
treaty, and we are grayely assured that this
astonishing contamination is matter for
generalization, and that through it the
Chinese question is at length "settled "
We shall reserve further comment on the
subject until the actual text of the treaty
is in our hands, and until we know what
difficulties, if any, the Commission had to
encounter. We may however remark, as
possibly significant, that up to the present
moment the only people who appear to
approve the alleged new treaty with any
approach toheartiness are the Chinese them
Selves