The increase in the six years is thus no less than 43 per cent. Of the total imports last year, cotton goods represent $55,000,000, or 42 per cent. Our exports to China (exclusive of Hong Kong) were as follows:
YEAR ENDING JUNE 30
| 1883 | $4,100,000 |
| 1884 | 4,600,000 |
| 1885 | 6,400,000 |
| 1886 | 7,500,000 |
| 1887 | 6,200,000 |
| 1888 | 4,600,000 |
These exports are made up almost entirely of cotton goods and petroleum. The exports of the former were greatest in 1887, when they reached $5,180,000, and of the latter in 1886, when they reached $2,400,000. For the year 1889 it is expected that the volume of imports into China will show the rate of expansion well maintained. For the year ending 30th June last our exports of cotton goods have fallen to $1,500,000, and of petroleum to $900,000—a decrease of 71 and 61 per cent, respectively from the best figures shown during the preceding six years. Thus, not only have we had no share in the increased imports into China, but have lost ground absolutely as well as relatively. In both leading divisions the decline can in some degree be traced to the natural effects of successful competition of other countries, notably Great Britain in cottons, and Russia in petroleum. It is certain, however, that it has been accelerated by the resentment aroused in China by our anti-Chinese legislation. The position demands the attention of our government as well as of our manufacturers, and we believe that when it is fully realized steps will be taken to regain the friendly interests of a nation whose possibilities are well nigh as great as our own.
The Japan Gazette, of Yokohama, 26th September, in a long article on "The United States and China," referring to reported measures of retaliation on the part of China for the treatment of the Chinese in the United States, says:
It is not easy to discover that any other course than the one which formed the subject matter of the conference remains for China to adopt as a counter thrust for the humiliation and indignity America has cast upon her. It is far from our desire to say that the United States was not perfectly justified in adopting the measure she did to prevent the celestial octopus stretching its vicious self over her territory. Justification in the highest existed. Chinese immigration thither had assumed alarming proportions and it was characterized by all those damning features ever associated with the Chinese element. The danger is one which faces America just as it has faced the Colonies, and it is well for those of our own color that it should be opposed by the best modes of defense. Only one result is aimed at, but it may be possible to achieve all that is desired by a plurality of methods. Perhaps America has not adopted the right one; at any rate she has clearly ruffled Chinese dignity. Such a decided act as hers, although, as we think, justified, was perhaps impolitic as the result indicates.
With these expressions of opinion as to the effect of the act and its policy, as an introduction, we now proceed to give as briefly as possible a record of the events that have led up to the present condition of our relations with the Chinese and to the passage of the Act referred to in its present form, in the Autumn of 1888.
The discovery of gold in California in 1848, an event which perhaps more then any other in recent times has contributed to the commercial and industrial growth of nations, first brought the people of the United States into social and business relations with the Chinese. Attracted by reports of the wealth to be found in our mines and excited by the return of some of the pioneers of their race, bearing in their hands the golden fruit of their toils, the stream of immigration began. For twenty years it grew in volume until, in 1876, the number of Chinese in California was about 100,000. A very much greater number had come to this country, but a large proportion of them had returned to their homes, and at the close of this period of twenty-seven years it appears from the census reports that the number returning was nearly as large as the number arriving.
The growth of this Chinese immigration directed attention to the diplomatic relations between the government of China and the United States. The first treaty with China in 1844, and the second treaty of 1858, were limited to the purpose of protecting American citizens doing business in China. The important right secured by these treaties was that by which Americans charged with offenses should be tried by United States laws in Consular Courts. These treaties related exclusively to the rights and privileges of Americans in China and defined the ports or limits within which they might reside for the purposes of trade.
Mr. Hamilton Fish, our Secretary of State, in a communication to Mr. Bancroft, then American Minister at Berlin, dated August 31, 1869, says: "The communication between China and the outside world was merely confined to the trading points. With the intellects that rule that nation of 450 millions of people, with the men who gave it its ideas and directed its policy, with its vast internal industries, with its great agricultural population, the traders consuls and functionaries of the ports rarely came into contact except in the contact of war.