If it is, nevertheless, thought that a passport is the most convenient way for identifying the Chinese entitled to the protection of the Burlingame treaty, it may still be doubted whether they ought to be required to register.  It is certainly our duty under the Burlingame treaty to make their stay in the United States, in the operation of general laws upon them, as nearly like that of our own citizens as we can consistently with our right to shut out the laborers.  No good purpose is served in requiring them to register.

My attention has been called by the Chinese minister to the fact that the bill as it stands makes no provision for the transit across the United States of Chinese subjects now residing in foreign countries.  I think that this point may well claim the attention of Congress in legislating on this subject.

I have said that good faith requires us to suspend the immigration of Chinese laborers for a less period than twenty years; I now add that good policy points in the same direction.

Our intercourse with China is of recent date.  Our first treaty with that power is not yet forty years old.  It is only since we acquired California and established a great seat of commerce on the Pacific that we may be said to have broken down the barriers which fenced in that ancient Monarchy.  The Burlingame treaty naturally followed.  Under the spirit which inspired it many thousand Chinese laborers came to the United States.  No one can say that the country has not profited by their work.  They were largely instrumental in constructing the railways which connect the Atlantic with the Pacific.  The States of the Pacific Slope are full of evidences of their industry.  Enterprises profitable alike to the capitalist and to the laborer of Caucasian origin would have lain dormant but for them.  A time has now come when it is supposed that they are not needed, and when it is thought by Congress and by those most acquainted with the subject that it is best to try to get along without them.  There may, however, be other sections of the country where this species of labor may be advantageously employed without interfering with the laborers of our own race.  In making the proposed experiment it may be the part of wisdom as well as of good faith to fix the length of the experimental period with reference to this fact.

Experience has shown that the trade of the East is the key to national wealth and influence.  The opening of China to the commerce of the whole world has benefited no section of it more than the States of our own Pacific Slope.  The State of California, and its great maritime port especially, have reaped enormous advantages from this source.  Blessed with an exceptional climate, enjoying an unrivaled harbor, with the riches of a great agricultural and mining State in its rear and the wealth of the whole Union pouring into it over its lines of railway, San Francisco has before it an incalculable future if our