establishment of the opium trade, nor would it uphold them in any attempt to violate the laws of China by the introduction of that article into the country." Dr. Martin, who acted as interpreter on the occasion, states that in the first draft of the treaty submitted by Mr. Reed to the Chinese there was an article denouncing and forbidding the opium trade, but that he was induced by Lord Elgin, the British plenipotentiary, to withdraw it, greatly to the surprise of the Chinese negotiators. There is much to be said in commendation of the British government in its relations with the Orient, but its connection with the opium traffic of China has left a dark and ineffaceable stain upon its record. In this matter the greed of the East India Company and its successor, the government of India, triumphed over the moral sentiment of the nation, which has done so much for the amelioration of the condition of mankind.[1]
In execution of the treaty of immigration of 1880, the Congress of the United States passed an act in 1882 prohibiting or suspending the coming of Chinese laborers into the country for a period of twenty years. This second attempt of Congress to legislate respecting Chinese immigration was met by a veto from President Arthur, on the ground that a prohibition of immigration for so long a time as twenty years was not warranted by the spirit of the treaty and was in violation of the assurances given by the commission which negotiated it that the large powers conferred on Congress "would be exercised by our government with a wise
- ↑ U. S. Treaties, 184; U. S. For. Rel. 1881, p. 216; 1883, pp. 123, 128; S. Ex. Doc. 30, 36th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 8; Martin's Cathay, 184.
