embarkation for home by a man who more than any other has
a right to be looked on as spokesman for Viceroy Chang; and the
following day the request was repeated by the viceroy himself. These
circumstances make it a document of more than ordinary importance.

The outrageous treatment to which the privileged classes (merchants,
students, and travellers) have been subjected, under cover of enforcing
the Exclusion Laws, has caused a deep-rooted resentment, of which
the boycott is only a superficial manifestation. That movement may
not be of long duration, but it has already lasted long enough
to do us no little damage.

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Besides occasioning embarrassment to our trade, it has excited a
feeling of hostility which it will require years of conciliatory
policy to eradicate.

The letter makes no direct reference to the boycott, neither does
it allude to coming negotiations; yet there can be little doubt
that, in making this appeal, the writer had both in view. The viceroy
and his officials are right in regarding the present as a grave
crisis in the intercourse of the two countries.

Their amicable relations have never been interrupted except during
a fanatical outbreak known as the "Boxer Troubles," which aimed
at the expulsion of all foreigners. The leading part taken by our
country in the subsequent settlement, especially in warding off the
threatened dismemberment of China, added immensely to our influence.
Again, on the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese conflict, which was
waged mainly on Chinese territory, it was American diplomacy that
secured for China the advantage of neutrality, and once more warded
off a danger that menaced her existence.

Yet every spark of gratitude for these transcendent services is
liable to be extinguished by the irritation caused by discrimination
against her labourers and the consequent ill-treatment of other
classes of her people. No argument is required to show how important
it is to remove all grounds of complaint in the interest of our
growing commerce.

That any sweeping alteration will be made in our existing laws, I
have given my mandarin friends no reason to expect. Self-preservation
stands on a higher plane than the amenities of intercourse. For
many years these laws served as a bulwark without which the
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sparse population of our Western States would have been swamped by
the influx of Asiatics. In early days it was easier for the Chinese
to cross the ocean than