The United States of America and His Majesty the Emperor of China, believing that the safety and prosperity of commerce will thereby best be promoted, agree that any privilege or immunity in respect to trade or navigation within the Chinese dominions which may not have been stipulated for by treaty, shall be subject to the discretion of the Chinese Government, and may be regulated by it accordingly, but not in a manner or spirit incompatible with the treaty stipulations of the parties.

At a first glance, this clause would seem unnecessary – unnecessary because the granting of any privilege not stipulated in a treaty with China, must of course be a matter entirely subject to the pleasure of the Chinese Government. Yet the clause has its significance. There is in China a class of foreigners who demand privileges, concessions and immunities, instead of asking for them – a class who look upon the Chinese as degraded barbarians, and not entitled to charity – as helpless, and therefore to be trodden underfoot – a tyrannical class who say openly that the Chinese should be forced to do thus and so; that foreigners know what is best for them, better than they do themselves, and therefore it would be but a Christian kindness to take them by the throat and compel them to see their real interests as the enlightened foreigners see them. These people harass and distress the Government by constantly dictating to it and meddling with its affairs. They beget and keep alive a “distrust” of foreigners among the Chinese people. It will surprise many among us to know that the Chinese are eminently hospitable, by nature, toward strangers. It will surprise many whose notion of Chinamen is that they are a race who formerly manifested their interest in shipwrecked strangers by exhibiting them in iron cages in public, in a half-starved condition, as rare and curious monsters, to know that a few hundred years ago they welcomed adventurous Jesuit priests, who struggled to their shores, with great cordiality, and gave to them the fullest liberty in the dissemination of their doctrines. I have seen at St. Peter’s, in Rome, a picture of certain restive Chinamen barbecuing some 80 Romish priests. This was an uncalled for stretch of hospitality – if it be proposed to call it hospitality at all. But the caging and barbecuing of strangers were disagreeable attentions which were secured to those strangers by their predecessors. As I have said, the Chinese were exceedingly hospitable and kind toward the first foreigners who came among them, 200 or 300 years ago. They listened to their preachings, they joined their Church. They saw the doctrines of Christianity spreading far and wide over the land, yet nobody murmured against these things. The Jesuit priests were elevated to high offices in the Government. China’s confidence in the foreigners was not betrayed. In time, had the Jesuits been let alone, they would have completely Christianized China, no doubt; that is, they would have made of the Chinese, Christians according to their moral, physical, and intellectual strength, and then given Nature a few generations in which to shed the Pagan skin, and sap the Pagan blood, and so perfect the work. For, be it known, one Jesuit missionary is equal to an army of any other denomination where there is actual work to be done, and solid, unsentimental wisdom to be exercised. However, to pursue my narrative, some priests of the Dominican order arrived, and very shortly began to make trouble. They began to cramp the privileges of converts; they flouted the system of persuasion of the Jesuits, and adopted that of driving; they meddled in politics, they became arrogant and dictatorial, they fomented discords everywhere – in a word, they utterly destroyed Chinese confidence in foreigners, and raised up Chinese hatred and distrust against them. For these things they were driven out of the country. When strangers came, after that, the Chinese, with that calm wisdom which comes only through bitter experience, caged them, or hanged them. I spoke, a while ago, of a domineering, hectoring class of foreigners in China who are always interfering with the Government’s business, and thus keeping alive the distrust and dislike engendered by their kindred spirits, the Dominicans, an age ago. They clog progress. Article 2 of the treaty is intended to discountenance all officious intermeddling with the Government’s business by Americans, and so move a step toward the restoration of that Chinese confidence in strangers which was annihilated so long ago.

ARTICLE 3

The Emperor of China shall have the right to appoint consuls at ports of the United States, who shall enjoy the same privileges and immunities as those which are enjoyed by public law and treaty in the United States by the Consuls of Great Britain and Russia, or either of them.

And soon – perhaps within a year or two – there will doubtless be a Chinese Envoy located permanently at Washington. The Consuls referred to above will be appointed with all convenient dispatch. They will be Americans, but will in all cases be men who are capable of feeling pity for persecuted Chinamen, and will call to a strict account all who wrong them. It affords me infinite satisfaction to call particular attention to this Consul clause, and think of the howl that will go up from the cooks, the railroad graders, and the cobble-stone artists of California, when they read it. They can never beat and bang and set the dogs on the Chinamen any more. These pastimes are lost to them forever. In San Francisco, a large part of the most interesting local news in the daily papers consists of gorgeous compliments to the “able and efficient” Officer This and That for arresting Ah Foo, or Ching Wang, or Song Hi for stealing a chicken; but when some white brute breaks an unoffending Chinaman’s head with a brick, the paper does not compliment any officer for arresting the assaulter, for the simple reason that the officer does not make the arrest; the shedding of Chinese blood only makes him laugh; he considers it fun of the most entertaining description. I have seen dogs almost tear helpless Chinamen to pieces in broad daylight in San Francisco, and I have seen hod-carriers who help to make Presidents stand around and enjoy the sport. I have seen troops of boys assault a Chinaman with stones when he was walking quietly along about his business, and send him bruised and bleeding home. I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature, but I never saw a policeman interfere in the matter and I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done him. The California laws do not allow Chinamen to testify against white men. California is one of the most liberal and progressive States in the Union, and the best and worthiest of her citizens will be glad to know that the days of persecuting Chinamen are over, in California. It will be observed by Article 3 that the Chinese consuls will be placed upon the same footing as those from Russia and Great Britain, and that no mention is made of France. The authorities got into trouble with a French consul in San Francisco, once, and, in order to pacify Napoleon, the United States enlarged the privileges of French consuls beyond those enjoyed by the consuls of all other countries.