The Treaty With China, its Provisions Explained

By

Mark Twain

www.freeclassicebooks.com

THE TREATY WITH CHINA

ITS PROVISIONS EXPLAINED

New York Tribune, Tuesday, August 28, 1868

Every one has read the treaty which has just been concluded between

the United States and China. Everyone has read it, but in it there are

expressions which not every one understands. There are clauses which

seem vague, other clauses which seem almost unnecessary, and still

others which bear the flavor of "surplusage," to speak in legal

phrase. The most careful reading of the document will leave these

impressions--that is, unless one comprehends the past and present

condition of foreign intercourse with China--in which case it will be

seen at once that there is no word in the treaty without a meaning,

and no clause in it but was dictated by a present need or a wise policy

looking to the future. It will interest many of your readers to know why

this, that, and the other provision was incorporated in the treaty;

it will interest others to know in what manner and to what extent the

treaty will affect our existing relations with China. Apart from its

grave importance, the subject is really as entertaining as any I know

of and--asking pardon for the presumption--I desire to write a

few paragraphs upon it. We made a treaty with China in 1858; Mr.

Burlingame's new treaty is an addition to that one, and an amplification

of its powers. The first article of this new treaty reads as follows:

ARTICLE I. His Majesty, the Emperor of China, being of the

opinion that in making concessions to the citizens or

subjects of foreign Powers of the privilege of residing on

certain tracts of land, or resorting to certain waters of

that Empire for the purposes of trade, he has by no means

relinquished his right of eminent domain or dominion over

the said land and waters, hereby agrees that no such

concession or grant shall be construed to give to any Power

or party which may be at war with or hostile to the United

States the right to attack the citizens of the United States

or their property within the said lands or waters; and the

United States, for themselves, hereby agree to abstain from

offensively attacking the citizens or subjects of any Power

or party or their property with which they may be at war on

any such tract of land or waters of the said Empire; but

nothing in this article shall be construed to prevent the

United States from resisting an attack by any hostile Power

or party upon their citizens or their property. It is

further agreed that if any right or interest in any tract of

land in China has been or shall hereafter be granted by the

Government of China to the United States or their citizens

for purposes of trade or commerce, that grant shall in no

event be construed to divest the Chinese authorities of

their right of jurisdiction over persons and property within

said tract of land, except so far as that right may have

been expressly relinquished by treaty.

In or near one or two of the cities of China the Emperor has set apart

certain tracts of land for occupation by foreigners. The foreigners

residing upon these tracts create courts of justice, organize police

forces, and govern themselves by laws of their own framing. They levy

and collect taxes, they pave their streets, they light them with gas.

These communities, through liberality of China, are so independent and

so unshackled that they have all the seeming of colonies--insomuch

that the jurisdiction of China over them was in time lost sight of and

disregarded--at least, questioned. The English communities came to be

looked upon as a part of England, and the American colonies as part of

America; and so, after the Trent affair, it was seriously held by many

that the Confederate ships of war would be as justifiable in making

attacks upon the American communities in China as they would be

in attacking New York or Boston. This doctrine was really held,

notwithstanding the supremacy of China over these tracts of land was

recognized at regular intervals in the most substantial way, viz., by

way of payment to the Government of a stipulated rental. Again, these

foreign communities took it upon themselves to levy taxes upon

Chinamen residing upon their so-called "concessions," and enforce their

collection. Perhaps those Chinamen were as well governed as they have

been anywhere in China, perhaps it was entirely just that they should

pay for good government--but the principle was wrong; it was an

encroachment upon the rights of the crown, and caused the Government

uneasiness; the boundary thus passed there was no telling how far the

encroachment might be pushed. The municipal council which taxed these

Chinamen was composed altogether of foreigners, so there was taxation

without representation--a policy which we fought seven years to

overthrow. The French have persistently claimed the right to exercise

untrammeled jurisdiction over both natives and foreigners residing

within their "concessions," but the present Minister, Monsieur Moustier,

has yielded this position in favor of the anti-concession doctrine,

and thus have ignored the "eminent dominion" of the Chinese Government.

Under Article 1 of the new treaty, the question of whether an enemy

of America can attack an American colony in China is answered in the

negative. Under it the right of the Chinese Government to regulate the

governing, taxing, and trying of its subjects resident within American

"concessions" is recognized--in a word, its supreme control over its

own people is recognized. Also (in the final sentence) its control over

scattering foreigners (of nationalities not in treaty relations with

China) not enrolled the regular concessions is "granted." During a war

between Russia and Denmark, a Prussian man-of-war captured two Danish

vessels lying at harbor in a Chinese harbor or roadstead, and carried

them off. Article 1 of this treaty pledges that like offenses shall

not be committed in Chinese waters by American cruisers, and looks to

Chinese protection of American ships against such outrages.

ART. 2. 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.

ART. 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.

ART. 4. The twenty-ninth article of the treaty of the 18th

of June, 1858, having stipulated for the exemption of

Christian citizens of the United States and Chinese converts

from persecution in China on account of their faith, it is

further agreed that citizens of the United States in China,

of every religious persuasion, and Chinese subjects in the

United States shall enjoy entire liberty of conscience, and

shall be exempt from all disability or persecution on

account of their religious faith or worship in either

country. Cemeteries for sepulture of the dead of whatever

nativity or nationality shall be held in respect and free

from disturbance or profanation.

The old treaty protected "Christian" citizens of the United States from

persecution. The new one is broader. It protects our citizens "of every

religious persuasion"--Jews, Mormons, and all. It also protects Chinamen

in this country in the worship of their own gods after their own

fashions, and also relieves them of all "disabilities" suffered by them

heretofore on account of their religion. This protection of Christians

in China is hardly necessary now-a-days, for the Chinamen have about

fallen back to their ancient ample spirit of toleration again as regards

religion. Anybody can preach in China who chooses to do it. He will not

be disturbed. The former persecution of Christians in China, which

was brought about by the Dominicans, seldom extended to the maiming

or killing of converts anyhow. They generally invited the convert to

trample upon a cross. If he refused, he was proven a Christian, and

so was shunned and disgraced. This diminished the list of Chinese

Christians very much, but did not root out that religion by any means.

Religious books have been written, and translations made, by Chinese

Christians, and there are as many as a million converts in China at

the present time. There are many families who have inherited their

Christianity by direct descent through six generations. In fact, it is

believed that Christianity existed in China 1,100 years ago. For many

years the missionaries heard vaguely, from time to time, of a monument

of the seventh century which was reported to be still standing over the

grave of some forgotten Christian far out in the interior of China. Two

of these missionaries, the Revs. Messrs. Lees and Williams, traveled

west 1,000 miles and found it. This brings me back to the fact, before

stated, that the religious toleration and protection guaranteed by

Article 4, are needed more by Chinamen here than by Americans in China.

Those two missionaries traveled away out into the heart of China,

preaching the Gospel of Christ every day, always being listened to

attentively by large assemblages, and always kindly and hospitably

treated. Moreover, these missionaries sold--mind you, sold, for cash,

to these assemblages--20,000 copies of religious books, thus wisely and

pleasantly combining salvation with business. If a Chinese missionary

were to come disseminating his eternal truths among us, we would laugh

at him first and bombard him with cabbages afterward. We would do this

because we are civilized and enlightened. We would make him understand

that he couldn't peddle his eternal truths in this market. China is one

of the few countries where perfect religious freedom prevails. It is one

of the few countries where no disabilities are inflicted on a man for

his religion's sake, in the matter of holding office and embezzling the

public funds. A Jesuit priest was formerly the Vice-President of the

Board of Public Works, an exceedingly high position, and the present

Viceroy of two important provinces is a Mohammedan. There are a

great many Mohammedans in China. The last clause of article 4 was not

absolutely necessary, perhaps. Still, it was well enough to have it

in. When the lower classes in California learn that they are forever

debarred from mutilating living Chinamen, their first impulse will

naturally be to "take it out" of the dead ones. But disappointment shall

be their portion. A Chinaman's "tail" is protected by law in California;

for if he lost his queue he would be a dishonored Chinaman forever, and

would forever be an exile. He could not think of returning to his native

land to offer his countrymen the absurd spectacle of a man without a

tail to his head. The Chinese regard their dead with a reverence which

amounts to worship. All Chinamen who die in foreign lands are shipped

home to China for permanent burial. Even the contracts which consign

the wretched Coolies to slavery at $5 a month salary and two suits of

clothes a year stipulate that if he dies in Cuba, the Sandwich Islands,

or any other foreign land, his body must be sent home. There are vast

vaults in San Francisco where hundreds of dead Chinamen have been

salted away by gentle hands for shipment. The heads of the great Chinese

Companies keep a record of the names of their thousands of members, and

every individual is strictly accounted for to the home office. Every now

and then a vessel is chartered and sent to China freighted with corpses.

ART 5. The United States of America and the Emperor of China

cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of

man to change his home and his allegiance, and also the

mutual advantages of the free migration and immigration of

their citizens and subjects respectively from the one

country to the other for purposes of curiosity, trade, or as

permanent residents. The high contracting parties,

therefore, join in reprobating any other than an entirely

voluntary immigration for these purposes. They consequently

agree to pass laws making it a penal offense for a citizen

of the United States or a Chinese subject to take Chinese

subjects either to the United States or to any other foreign

country, or for a Chinese subject or a citizen of the United

States to take citizens of the United States to China or any

other foreign country without their free and voluntary

consent respectively.

Article 5 aims at two objects, viz.: The spreading of the naturalization

doctrine (Mr. Seward could not give his assent to a treaty which did not

have that in it) and the breaking up of the infamous Coolie trade. It is

popularly believed that the Emperor of China sells Coolies himself, by

the shipload, and even at retail, but such is not the case. He is known

to be exceedingly anxious to destroy the Coolie trade. The "voluntary"

emigration of Chinamen to California already amounts to a thousand

a month, and this treaty will greatly increase it. It will not only

increase it, but will bring over a better class of Chinamen-men of

means, character, and standing in their own country. The present Chinese

immigration, however, is the best class of people--in some respects,

though not in all--that comes to us from foreign lands. They are the

best railroad hands we have by far. They are the most faithful, the

most temperate, the most peaceable, the most industrious. The Pacific

Railroad Company employs them almost exclusively, and by thousands. When

a chicken roost or a sluice-box is robbed in California, some Chinaman

is almost sure to suffer for it--yet these dreadful people are trusted

in the most reckless manner by the railroad people. The Chinese railroad

hands go down in numbers to Sacramento and often spend their last cent.

Then they simply go to the Superintendent, state their case, write their

names on a card, together with a promise to refund out of the first

wages coming to them, and with no other security than this, railroad

tickets are sold to them on credit. Mr. Crocker and his subordinates

have done this time and again, and have yet to lose the first cent

by it. In the towns and cities the Chinamen are cooks, chambermaids,

washerwomen, nurses, merchants, butchers, gardeners, interpreters in

banks and business houses, etc. They are willing to do anything that

will afford them a living.

ART. 6. Citizens of the United States visiting or residing

in China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, or

exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may there be

enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored

nation; and, reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting or

residing in the United States shall enjoy the same

privileges, immunities and exemptions in respect to travel

or residence as may be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects

of the most favored nation; but nothing herein contained

shall be held to confer naturalization upon the citizens of

the United States in China, nor upon the subjects of China

in the United States.

There will be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth on the Pacific

coast when Article 6 is read. For, at one sweep, all the crippling,

intolerant, and unconstitutional laws framed by California against

Chinamen pass away, and discover (in stage parlance) 20,000

prospective Hong Kong and Suchow voters and office-holders! Tableau. I

am not fond of Chinamen, but I am still less fond of seeing them wronged

and abused. If the reader has not lived in San Francisco, he can have

only a very faint conception of the tremendous significance of this

mild-looking, unpretentious Article 6. It lifts a degraded, snubbed,

vilified, and hated race of men out of the mud and invests them with the

purple of American sovereignty. It makes men out of beasts of burden.

The first iniquity it strikes at is that same revolutionary one of

taxation without representation. In California the law imposes a

burdensome mining tax upon Chinamen--a tax which is peculiar in its

nature and is not imposed upon any other miners, either native or

foreign--and the legislature that created this rascality knew the law

was in flagrant violation of the constitution when they passed it.

Mr. Cushing, a great lawyer, and formerly minister to China, says

that nearly all the Pacific coast laws relating to Chinamen are

unconstitutional and could not stand in a court at all. The Chinese

mining tax has been collected with merciless faithfulness for many

years--often two or three times, instead of once--but its collection

will have to be discontinued now. Treaties of the United States override

the handiwork of even the most gifted of State legislatures. In San

Francisco if a Chinaman enters a street car to ride with the Negroes

and the Indians and the other gentlemen and ladies, the magnificent

conductor instantly ejects him, with all the insolence that $75 a month

and official importance of microscopic dimensions confer upon small

people. The Chinaman may ride on the front platform, but not elsewhere.

Hereafter, under the ample shadow of Article 6, he may ride where he

pleases. Chinamen, the best gardeners in America, own no gardens. The

laws of California do not allow them to acquire property in real estate.

Article 6 does, though. Formerly, in the police court, they swore

Chinamen according to the usual form, and sometimes, where the

magistrate was particularly anxious to come at the truth, a chicken was

beheaded in open court and some yellow paper burned with awful solemnity

while the oath was administered--but the Chinaman testified only against

his own countrymen. Things are changed now, however, and he may testify

against whom he pleases. No one ever saw a Chinaman on a jury on

the Pacific coast. Hereafter they will be seen on juries, sitting in

judgment upon the crimes of men of all nationalities. Chinamen have

taken no part in elections, heretofore, further than to sweep out the

balloting stations, but the time is near at hand when they will vote

themselves; when they will be clerks and judges of election, and receive

and account for the votes of white men; when they will be eligible to

office and may run for Congress, if such be the will of God. We have

seen caricatures in San Francisco representing a white man asking a

Chinaman for his vote. It was fine irony then, but in a very little

while the same old lithograph, resurrected, will have as much point as

it ever had, only the subject of it will have become a solemn reality

instead of an ingenious flight of fancy. In that day, candidates will

have to possess other accomplishments besides being able to drink lager

beer and twirl a shillalah. They will have to smoke opium and eat with

chop-sticks. Influential additions will have to be made to election

tickets and transparencies, thus: "THE COUNTRY'S HOPE, THE PEOPLE'S

CHOICE--DONNERWETTER, O'SHAUGHNESSY, AND CHING-FOO" The children of

Chinese citizens will have the entry of the public schools on the same

footing as white children. Any one who is not blind, can see that the

first ninety words of Article 6 work a miracle which shames the most

dazzling achievements of him of the wonderful lamp. I am speaking as if

I believed the Chinamen would hasten to take out naturalization papers

under this treaty and become citizens. I do believe it. They are shrewd

and smart, and quick to see an advantage; that is one argument. If they

have any scruples about becoming citizens, the politicians who need

their votes will soon change their opinions. Article 6 does not confer

citizenship upon Chinamen--we have other laws which regulate that

matter. It simply gives them the privileges and immunities pertaining to

"residence," in the same degree as they are enjoyed by the "subjects

of the most favored nation." One of the chief privileges pertaining

to "residence" among us is that of taking the oath and becoming full

citizens after that residence has been extended to the legal and

customary period. Mr. Cushing says the Chinamen had a right to become

citizens before Article 6 was framed. They certainly have it now.

Prominent senators refused to touch the treaty or have anything to

do with it unless it threw the doors of citizenship open as freely to

Chinamen as to other foreigners. The entire Senate knew the broadest

meaning of Article 6--and voted for it. The closing sentence of it

was added to please a certain Senator, and then he was satisfied and

supported the treaty with all his might. It was a gratification to him

to have that sentence added; and inasmuch as the sentence could do

no harm, since it don't mean anything whatever under the sun, it was

gratefully and cheerfully added. It could not have been added to please

a worthier man. It sets off the treaty, too, because it is so gracefully

worded and is so essentially and particularly ornamental. It embellishes

and supports the grand edifice of the Chinese treaty, even as a wealth

of stucco embellishes and supports a stately temple. It would hardly be

worth while for a treaty to confer naturalization in the last clause

of an article wherein it had already provided for the acquirement

of naturalization by the proper and usual course. The idea of making

negroes citizens of the United States was startling and disagreeable to

me, but I have become reconciled to it; and being reconciled to it, and

the ice being broken and the principle established, I am now ready for

all comers. The idea of seeing a Chinaman a citizen of the United States

would have been almost appalling to me a few years ago, but I suppose

I can live through it now. Maybe it will be well to say what sort of

people these prospective voters are. There are 50,000 of them on the

Pacific coast at large, and 15,000 or 20,000 in San Francisco. They

occupy a quarter just out of the business center of the city. They

worship a hideous idol in a gorgeous temple. They have a theater,

where the orchestra sit on the stage (drinking tea occasionally,)

and deafening the public with a ceaseless din of gongs, cymbals, and

fiddles with two strings, whose harmonies are capable of inflicting

exquisite torture. Their theatrical dresses are much finer and more

costly than those in the Black Crook, and the immorality of their plays

is fully up to the Black Crook standard. Consequently they are ruined

people. Their prominent instinct being just like ours, let us extend the

right-hand of fellowship to them across the sea. Some of the men gamble,

and the standing of the women is not good. The Chinese streets of San

Francisco are crowded with shops and stalls mostly, but there are

many Chinese merchant princes who do business on a large scale. The

remittances of coin to China amount to half a million a month. Chinamen

work hard and with tireless perseverance; other foreigners get out of

work, and labor exchanges must look out for them. Chinamen look out for

themselves, and are never idle a week at a time; they make excellent

cooks, washers, ironers, and house servants; they are never seen drunk;

they are quiet, orderly, and peaceable, by nature; they possess the rare

and probably peculiarly barbarous faculty of minding their own business.

They are as thrifty as Holland Dutch. They permit nothing to go to

waste. When they kill an animal for food, they find use for its hoofs,

hide, bones, entrails--everything. When other people throw away fruit

cans they pick them up, heat them, and secure the melted tin and solder.

They do not scorn refuse rags, paper, and broken glass. They can make

a blooming garden out of a sand-pile, for they seem to know how to

make manure out of everything which other people waste. As I have said

before, they are remarkably quick and intelligent, and they can all

read, write, and cipher. They are of an exceedingly observant and

inquiring disposition. I have been describing the lowest class

of Chinamen. Do not they compare favorably with the mass of other

immigrants? Will they not make good citizens? Are they not able to

confer a sound and solid prosperity upon a State? What makes a sounder

prosperity or invites and unshackles capital more surely than good,

cheap, reliable labor? California and Oregon are vast, uncultivated

grain fields. I am enabled to state this in the face of the fact that

California yields twenty million bushels of wheat this year! California

and Oregon will fill up with Chinamen, and these grain fields will be

cultivated up to their highest capacity. In time, some of them will be

owned by Chinamen, inasmuch as the treaty gives them the right to own

real estate. The very men on the Pacific coast who will be loudest in

their abuse of the treaty will be among those most benefited by it--the

day-laborers. The Chinamen, able to work for half wages, will take their

rough manual labor off the hands of these white men, and then the

whites will rise to the worthier and more lucrative employment of

superintending the Chinamen, and doing various other kinds of brain-work

demanded of them by the new order of things. Through the operation of

this notable Article 6, America becomes at once as liberal and as free

a country as England--therefore let me rejoice. Singapore is a British

colony. There are 16,000 Chinese there, and they are all British

subjects--British citizens in the widest meaning of the term. They have

all the rights and privileges enjoyed by Englishmen. They hold office.

One Chinaman there is a magistrate, and administers British law for

British subjects. A Chinaman resident for three or four years in

England, and possessing a certain amount of property, can become

naturalized and vote, hold office, and exercise all the functions and

enjoy all the privileges of citizens by birth.

ART. 7. Citizens of the United States shall enjoy all the

privileges of the public educational institutions under the

control of the Government of China, and reciprocally Chinese

subjects shall enjoy all the privileges of the public

educational institutions under the control of the Government

of the United States which are enjoyed in the respective

countries by the citizens or subjects of the most favored

nations. The citizens of the United States may freely

establish and maintain schools within the Empire of China at

those places where foreigners are by treaty permitted to

reside, and reciprocally Chinese subjects may enjoy the same

privileges and immunities in the United States.

Article 7 explains itself.

ART. 8. The United States, always disclaiming and

discouraging all practices of unnecessary dictation and

intervention by one nation in the affairs or domestic

administration of another, do hereby freely disclaim any

intention or right to intervene in the domestic

administration of China in regard to the construction of

railroads, telegraphs, or other material internal

improvements. On the other hand, His majesty and the Emperor

of China reserves to himself the right to decide the time,

and manner, and circumstances of introducing such

improvements within his dominions. With this mutual

understanding it is agreed by the contracting parties that

if at any time hereafter His Imperial Majesty shall

determine to construct or cause to be constructed works of

the character mentioned within the Empire, and shall make

application to the United States or any other Western power

for facilities to carry out that policy, the United States

will, in that case, designate and authorize suitable

engineers to be employed by the Chinese Government, and will

recommend to other nations an equal compliance with such

application, the Chinese Government in that case protecting

such engineers in their persons and property, and paying

them a reasonable compensation for their service.

Article 8 looks entirely unnecessary at a first glance. Yet to

China--and afterward to the world at large--it is perhaps the most

important article in the whole treaty. It aims at restoring Chinese

confidence in foreigners, and will go far toward accomplishing it. Until

that is done, only the drippings (they amount to millions annually)

of the vast fountains of Eastern wealth can be caught by the Western

nations. I have before spoken of an arrogant class of foreigners

in China who demand of the Government the building of railways and

telegraphs, and who assume to regulate and give law to the customs of

trade, almost in open defiance of the constituted authorities. Their

menacing attitude and their threatening language frighten the Chinese,

who know so well the resistless power of the Western nations. They look

upon these things with suspicion. They want railways and telegraphs,

but they fear to put these engines of power into the hands of strangers

without a guaranty that they will not be used for their own oppression,

possibly their destruction. Even as it is now, foreigners can go into

the interior and commit wrongs upon the people with impunity, for their

"extra territorial" privileges leave them answerable only to their

own laws, administered upon their own domain or "concessions." These

"concessions" being far from the scene of the crime, it does not pay

to send witnesses such distances, and so the wrong goes untried and

unpunished. There are other obstacles to the immediate construction of

the demanded internal improvements--among them the inherent prejudice of

the untaught mass of the common people against innovation. It is sad

to reflect that in this respect the ignorant Chinese are strangely like

ourselves and other civilized peoples. Unfortunately, the very day that

the first message passed over the first telegraph erected in China, a

man died of cholera at one end of the line. The superstitious people

cried out that the white man's mysterious machine had destroyed the

"good luck" of the district. The telegraph had to be taken down,

otherwise the exasperated people would have done it themselves. How

precisely like our civilized, Christianized, enlightened selves these

Chinese "men and brethren" are! The farmers of great Massachusetts turned

out en masse, armed with axes, and resisted the laying of the first

railroad track in that State. Thirty years ago, the concentrated wisdom

of France, in National Assembly convened, gravely pronounced railroads a

"foolish, unrealizable toy." In Tuscany, the people rose in their might

and swore there should be bloodshed before a railroad track should be

laid on their soil. Their reason was exactly the same as that offered by

the Chinese--they said it would destroy the "good luck" of the country.

Let us be lenient with the little absurd peculiarities of the Chinese,

for manifestly these people are our own blood relations. Let us look

charitably now upon a certain very serious obstacle which lies in

the way of their sudden acceptance of a great railroad system. Let

us remember that China is one colossal graveyard--a mighty empire so

knobbed all over with graves that the level spaces left are hardly more

than alleys and avenues among the clustering death-mounds. Animals

graze upon the grass-clad graves (for all things are made useful

in China), and the spaces between are carefully and industriously

cultivated. These graves are as precious as their own blood to the

Chinese, for they worship their dead as ancestors. The first railroad

that plows its pitiless way through these myriads of sacred hillocks

will carry dismay and distress into countless households. The railways

must be built, though. We respect the griefs of the poor country people,

but still the railways must be built. They will tear heartstrings out by

the roots, but they lead to the sources of unimaginable wealth, and they

must be built. These old prejudices must and can be eradicated--just as

they were in Massachusetts. With such encouragement from foreigners,

and such guaranties of good will and just intent as Article 8 offers

by simply agreeing that China may transact her own private business

unmolested by meddlesome interference, the Emperor will cheerfully begin

to open up his country with roads and telegraphs. It seems a simple

thing and an easy one to accord to a man such manifest and indisputable

rights, but beyond all doubt this assurance is what China craves most.

Article 8, indorsed by all the Western powers, would unlock the riches

of 400,000,000 of Chinese subjects to the world. Hence, to all parties

concerned, it is perhaps, the important clause of the treaty. That China

is anxious to build railways is shown in the fact that by the latest

news from there, just officially enunciated to our State Department, it

appears that the Viceroy of the three chief provinces of the Empire is

about to begin a railroad from Suchow to Shanghai--80 miles--or, at

least, has the project under serious consideration. The new treaty with

America will tend to strengthen and encourage him in his design.

This is the broadest, most unselfish, and most catholic treaty yet framed

by man, perhaps. There is nothing mean, or exacting, or unworthy in any

of its provisions. It freely offers every privilege, every benefit,

and every concession the most grasping suitor could demand, to a

nation accustomed for generations to understand a "treaty" as being

a contrivance whose province was to extort as many "advantages" as

possible and give as few as possible in return. The only "advantage" to

the United States perceptible on the face of the document, perhaps, is

the advantage of having dealt justly and generously by a neighbor and

done it in a cordial spirit. It is something to have done right--a

species of sentiment seldom considered in treaties. In ratifying this

treaty the Senate of the United States did themselves high credit, and

all the more so that they did it with such alacrity and such heartiness.

This is a treaty with no specific advantages noted in it; it is simply

the first great step toward throwing all China open to the world, by

showing toward her a spirit which invites her esteem and her confidence

instead of her customary curses. There is nothing in it about China

ceding to us the navigation of an ocean in return for the navigation

of a creek; nor the monopoly of silk for a monopoly of beeswax; nor a

whaling-ground in return for a sardine-fishery. Yet it is a treaty

which is full of "advantages." It is more full of them than is any other

treaty, but they are meted out with an even hand to all--to China upon

the one hand, and to the world upon the other. It looks to the opening

up, in China, of a vast and lucrative commerce with the world, and of

which America will have only her just share, nothing more. It looks to

the lifting up of a mighty nation and conferring upon it the boon of a

purer religion and of a higher and better civilization than it has

known before. It is a treaty made in the broad interests of justice,

enlightenment, and progress, and therefore it must stand. It bridges the

Pacific, it breaks down the Tartar wall, it inspires with fresh young

blood the energies of the most venerable of the nations. It acquires a

grand field for capital, labor, research, enterprise--confers science,

mechanics, social and political advancement, Christianity. Is it not

enough?

Mark Twain.