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C.O.
Mr.
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Enclosure 3.
RESP
Memorandum of a conversation held in the presence
Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Hongkong, between
. Taft, Secretary of War of the United States, and the following Chinese gentlemen residing
in Hongkong:- Hon. Dr. Ho Kai, & Hon. Wei Yuk, Messre. Tung Va chún, Lau Chú pak,
Ku Pai-shan and Leung Pui-chi.
Mr. Taft.
Gentlemen, I am very glad to see you.
His Excellency Sir Matthew Nathan, has been good enough to
ask you to come here in order that I may discuss with you
the situation with respect to United States trade in the
province of Canton and generally in China in view of the
threatened boycott of United States manufactures, I am ad-
-vised that the trouble has arisen out of a feeling of a
sense of injustice on the part of Chinamen generally with
respect to the enforcement of the exclusion laws in the
United States. I ought to say that those exclusion laws are
directed solely against the introduction into the United
States of the coolie or strictly labour class, and that
neither by Treaty nor by law was it intended to exclude
merchants or students, nor was it intended to subject them
to contumely or insult in the formalities attending their
admission to the territory of the United States. The Bureau
of Commerce and Labour, though for some time nominally
under the Treasury Department, acted really independently
of the head of that Department, who trusted wholly the
administration of affairs to the Chief of the Bureau.
Chief of the Bureau was actuated with a desire to prevent
the violation of the law, and made rulings with respect to
its construction which were formally concurred in by the
Secretary of the Treasury and which were in a number of
cases probably too narrow and severe. Not until the last
year has the attention of the President and the Cabinet
been seriously called to complaints with reference to the
unjust operation of the law against merchants and Chinese
students who have attempted to come into the country in
The
accordance
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