Advance is inevitable and the world need not fear the result. If China were strong enough to give effect to the hostility which some of her people now feel, she might be a menace to the peace of the world, but she cannot grow in strength faster than she grows in knowledge, and as she grows in knowledge she will learn, as other nations have learned, that nations help rather than injure each other by the material, intellectual and moral development of their people.
A CANTON BRIDGE.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHINESE EXCLUSION[2]
If every American could visit China, the question of Chinese immigration would soon be settled upon a permanent basis, for no one can become acquainted with the Chinese coolie without recognizing the impossibility of opening the doors of our country to him without injustice to our own laboring men, demoralization to our social ideas, injury to China's reputation among us and danger to our diplomatic relations with that country.
I made it a point to inquire among the Chinese whom I met, in order to ascertain the real sentiment back of the boycott. I had heard of students being subjected to harsh regulations at ports of entry, of travelers humiliated by confinement in uncomfortable sheds and of merchants treated rudely, and I supposed that these things had aroused the resentment. I found, however, that the things complained of were more difficult to deal with and the concessions demanded impossible to grant.