CO129-329 - Governor Nathan - 1905 [7-12] — Page 270

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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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