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consume; where the laws permit of the parent,s selling their off- treaties naturally are and should be modified or ignored in
sp1,;ing into slavery; where woman is a chattel and supposed to the interests of justice and national safety.
be without a soul; where the punishment for crime includes both Says one high authority on international law:
the death of the offender and that of all of his relatives over 16 A treaty pernicious to the state is null, and not at all obligatory, as no con-
ductor of a nation has the power to enter into engagements to do such things
years of age, and by cruel and barbarous methods; where indi-
as are capable of destroying the state for whose sake the government is in-
viduals are bitten to death by their fellow-craftsmen for an in- trusted to him.
fringement of their rule--to that Western land where a mixture Says the same writer:
of the Caucasian race have come, assimilated: and created a free, The nation itself, being necessarily obliged to perform everything required
humane, and enlightened Government and phenomenal wealth. for its preservation and safety, can not enter into engagements contrary to
its indispensable obligations.
On the western shores of this continent, in Australasia, and
Another uses the words:
upon the islands of the Pacific Ocean, whose farther waters brake
on the shores of the Yellow Sea, have met the tides of immigra- A total change of the circumstances renders a treaty no longer obligatory.
tion which parted company on the plains of Asia at some pre- And a very able lawyer and writer says:
historic period-the one going East, the other West, and there It is not to be permitted that the liberties, the prosperity, the evolution
and development of nations should be arrested by the weight of unchangea-
has commenced the struggle which shall determine which civili- ble treaties, which, under verbal forms, might place the industries and the
zation shall predominate-the simple or the complex? And the social and political interests of a country in jeopardy.
action taken by us to-day may,· and probably will, influence the Sucii conditions now exist between the Governments of the
destiny of a nation for good or evil. Empire of China and the United States by reason of the Burlin-
The question now is, shall we exclude this people? And if game treaty.
answered i.n the affirmative, then we must ignore all sentimen- The effect of this treaty has been and is anything but mutual
tality and technicalities and, without delay, by direct methods or equitable. While a portion of her race occupy our soil we
exclude. are practically prevented from entering the "Flowery King-
But some say to do so, granting the necessity, would be vio- dom" for either pleasure or profit. While we have, say, two
lating treaty obligations. · In this I do not agree with them. hundred thousand of this people in the United States, there are
As it is contended by the highest authorities on international less than eleven hundred Americans, all, told, in China. They
law, and as the highest tribunal in our land has decided that are absorbing our substance and returning no equivalent for the
under our Constitution treaties and statutes are alike the laws same. Our civilization is threatened; our industries paralyzed
of the land, and hence the latest act of the treaty or legislative wherever they appear; our labor driven from employment; our
111aking power must prevail over any pi'evious act, it follows women and children prevented from earning their bread; they
that a Federal statute contrary to a provi~ion of a treaty neces- have arrayed section against section; have and are disturbing
sarily repeals that portion of the treaty. And as a treaty, un- the peace and prosperity of the land. Their presence means
der the law and usages of nations, is simply an agreement be- ruin to our laboring classes, and hence greatly complicates the
tween two or more powers for their mutual advantage and de- labor question, fast becoming a high political one, and one that
pends for its duration and validity upon equity. (Most treaties confounds the ablest thinkers-hence these very conditions have
from their very nature are transitory.) Where conditions rendered the treaty nugatory.
change and that which was intended to be mutual and equitable Article 5 of this treaty hai!! strikingly shown the want of states-
proves to be the reverse and either party is injured thereby, manship by those who negotiated andaccepted it. It has proved
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