Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-05-04
AMENDING THE TREATY.

The Senate Committee on Foreign
Affairs advises that the Chinese treaty be
sent back to the President with suggested
amendments, with advice to him to secure
the concurrence of the Chinese Govern
ment in them. This is c direct, unmistak-
able, open notice to Mr.. Cleveland that no
Chinese treaty will receive the approval of
the United States Senate that does not
effect what it purports to desire and what
the people demand. The truth is now APP
parent to everyone that the Bayard treaty
is 4 mere shell through which the Chinese
can break at will Oriental craft cheated
the never very enthusiastic Secretary, for
his desire to exclude Chinese laborers has
not been made manifest in any manner to
carry conviction of its sincerity.
The first amendment the President is
advised to insist upon excludes all Chinese
laborers who leave this country. That is,
the hope of return is cut off by the aboli-
ton Of the grossly abused certificate sys-
TEN. Within the week the RECORD
UNION has expressed its belief that absolute
abandonment of the return certificate bust
ness for Chinese excluded classes, the abso-
lutte exclusion of laborers without an eff or
an and" is the only practical rule to set
up and the only one that will accomplish
any good whatever. The second proposed
amendment limits the right to return to
the excepted classes, and requires appIi-
cants to establish, as condition precedent,
that they belong to one of these classes
and have property in this country to the
value of $1,000, or leave behind them
wife or family. So far as now informed of
the text of the proposed amendment. we
can conceive of no reasonable objection
that can be raised.
1t is said that the Chinese Minister is
ready to accept these amendments. This
is rebuke to Mr.. Bayard and to the en-
tire Administration of Mr.. Cleveland.
How comes it that such loopholes were
left in the treaty in the first instance? Is
the chief Secretary of Mr.. Cleveland so
ill-informed as to the facts that he did not
realize how faulty was the original treaty Z?
Was Chinese cunning too much for him i?
Was he so ignorant of the facts developed
during the last three years by attempts to
Illegally land Chinese at San Francisco
that he could not comprehend the weak
ness of the present treaty and the practi-
cal failure of the Restriction Act?
The Democracy will go before the peo-
pie of the Pacific coast this year with all
manner of excuses in its mouth for its
laundering in this treaty business. 1t will
enter the campaign defensively upon
chief local question and we cannot see
how it will be possible for it to explain
away its failure to keep its pledges upon
that question. Every one remembers
how the Democratic stump speakers four
years ago and eight years ago delighted
to assail the Republican party on the as
sumed ground that it had not secured the
passage of efficient restriction laws, nor
entered into such treaties as would shut
the door upon Chinese immigration. They
rrated then of what the Democracy would
do, If only it were invested with power
since then the Democratic party has had
full oppol tunity to fulfill its promises.
How it has kept them the people well I'M
derstand. Had it not been for the labors
and protests of Republican members of
Congress from the Pacific coast, and the
efforts of Republicans of the Pacific coast
generally, no advance whatever would
have been made-indeed, we would be
saddled with a treaty that would have
made our latter condition more intolera-
BILE than our first.