The Bulletin, of Providence, R. I., says:
"For the inspiration of the whole disgraceful business was not the public welfare nor the public dignity, but the desire to advance public party interests by satisfying a clamoring crowd of Pacific coast voters. With few exceptions the leaders of either party were only too eager to grant whatever the sand lot crowd of San Francisco desired. * * * So generally was this understood that the harsh construction put upon the act in the late administration was accepted without question everywhere as fairly embodying the purpose of Congress; and no one, even among those who deplored the law and felt humiliated in their citizenship by it, ever thought to doubt the correctness of the decision, but looked upon it as the natural conclusion to a piece of shameful demagogism.
"Some day, doubtless, we shall learn that by insulting a sensitive people who are essential to the development of our commerce on the Pacific, and who might have been made valuable customers, we have spited nobody so much as ourselves."
"The San Francisco Report," says the Atlanta Journal, "has amended the California slogan, 'The Chinese must go.' It says that the agriculturists who cannot get along without them must also go; that 'if they have become so far demoralized as to prefer to associate with yellow slaves rather than with their fellow-countrymen, California can hardly be a desirable place of residence for them.' Isn't it about time to consider whether we are not pushing to hurtful extremes the policy of excluding workingmen from this country."
"The St Paul Pioneer Press characterizes the regulation forbidding Chinese laborers from landing at American ports, for any purpose whatever, as being 'about as stringent as the old anti-Huguenot laws of France.' And that paper goes on to say, 'It is to the material interest of this country to cultivate friendly relations with China. We want her trade, now largely going to Great Britain, but we cannot expect to get it by hurling exclusion acts at her. As a matter of fact the anti-Chinese laws now existing have not kept many Chinese out of the country. They come in with the greatest ease through British Columbia and Mexico. There are just as many Chinese in the country as there were in 1880. This is the result of about forty years' Immigration. And, as these people cling more fondly to their native heath than any other in the world, the dangers of their overrunning this continent, even if all its ports were thrown open to them, is altogether imaginary."
The Omaha Bee declares that "the matter possesses the interest of an International question, the decision of which will hardly fall to have a more or less important bearing upon our future relations with China;" and "the Chinese government may reasonably be expected to regard the discrimination against Its people as evidence of a seated hostility to them which self-respect would compel it to resent. Chinese merchants have already done so to the detriment of our commerce with China, but a further evidence of American aversion to the people of China may move the government of that country to take notice of the feeling in a way that might prove of a considerable damage to us."
The Daily Commercial Bulletin, of New York, in the course of a long and well considered article on "China as a Market for Americans," after commenting on the enterprising tendencies of the present government of China, says:
It is absolutely certain, that the opening up of China, with its enormous population, must, despite native views to the contrary, mean a great impetus to her foreign trade. The railroad ordered to be made will be followed by similar enterprises in other directions. The interior of China, of which we know so little, and the inhabitants of which know still less about us, will then be brought into contact with Western manufacturers; and it needs no spirit of prophecy to tell what the tremendous outcome of that will be. With an area of about 5,000,000 square miles, and a population of over 400,000,000 souls, the possibilities of international trade with the Chinese Empire in future generations are altogether beyond calculation.
In this connection it will be well to examine our own position with regard to the commerce of China. A return recently issued by the Maritime Customs Office of that country gives the imports of foreign merchandise (apart from the junk trade with Hong Kong and Macao) for the year 1888 as $130,000,000—an increase on 1887 of 11 per cent. This improvement is part of a continuous growth, as the imports for the following years show.
| 1883 | $91,500,000 |
| 1884 | 90,000,000 |
| 1885 | 110,000,000 |
| 1886 | 109,000,000 |
| 1887 | 117,500,000 |
| 1888 | 130,000,000 |