The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-11-05
CHINESE BOYCOTT ON AMERICAN GOODS
Large Losses to the
United States
Exporters.

CANTON-The Chinese boycott |
against American goods will cost the
business interests of the United States
millions OF dollars The embargo
against Yankee products has gone in
to effect in seventeen of the eighteen
provinces of the flowery kingdom, and
even if immediate steps are taken to
stop the agitation against American
wares, irreparabIe loss has already
been done to our commerce 1t will
take many months, perhaps years, to
recover the ground We have lost in
this great market This is all the
more to be regretted because it might
have been prevented. The causes
leading up to this extensive boycott
all revert primarily to the work of
bungIing or corrupt American officials.
The American merchants held de-
cided advantage in the vast market of
China, because our government has
always befriended the Celestial En-
pire. Our influence has been exerted
to preserve the integrity of China
when Europe clamored for its parti-
ton. We are the only power that has
resisted the temptation to take a slice
of it's rich territory when others were
helping themselves. Our merchants
/. Were morally certain to benefit by the
favorable feeling created by this
friendly attitude, when this boycott oc-
CURED to clog the wheels of our COM
merciaI progress.
A
The trouble reverts to official abuse
of the treaty of 1880 regulating Chi
nese immigration to the United States,
the second article of which reads:
Chinese subjects, whether proceeding
to the United States as teachers, stu
dents, merchants, or from curiosity,
together with their body and house
hold servants, and Chinese laborers
who are now in the United States,
shall be allowed to go and come of
their own free will and accord, and
shall be accorded all the rights, privi-
leges, immunities and exemptions which
are accorded to the citizens and sub
jects of the most favored nations"
This ruling is so plain that. there can
be no nlistaking the rights of certain
Chinese subjects named therein, yet
official action in the United States has
become so strict that for years no
Chinese no matter how important
parsonage he might be, could enter our
country without being subjected to a
most sweeping and embarrassing eX-
animation This state of affairs re-
suited first because both native and
American officials in China committed
frauds by giving merchant and student
certificates to coolies, and because
the western officials particularly
those of San Francisco have been
oyer-zealous in catering to the labor
- vote of their State. In their determI-
nation to keep out the coolie, who is
not wanted and who cannot enter le-
galIy, they have brought about more
serious consequence by offending and
arrayjng against US me best class OF
Chinese. They have gone from one
extreme to the other. Thousands OF
coolies in America could not nave
damaged us as much this boycott
will.
CHINESE NOT TREATED FAIRLY
Many specific instances are CITED
where prominent Chinese have been
treated with fragrant disrespect ana
often refused admittance to the coun-
try Not long ago a young student
was sent back because his papers dld
not state what school in the Ur1ted
states he proposed to attend. He had
the regular consular certificate, let
ter from an American missionary
stating that the Chinese Consul IN
America should determine which col
lege it would be best for the young
man to attend and other letters be-
sides; yet the immigration officers held
that his papers We're irregular because
he did not know which school ne
wanted to attend. 1t is hard TO see
how there is anything in the treaty
which would warrant them going 10
sucb an extreme The law says that