perial Government to have adjusted in the speediest manner possible. In the interest, therefore, of our past friendship, and to promote and cement more firmly our good relations, I again communicate to you the respectful request of my Government that the cited notes of this legation may have your early attention, and that I may be favored as promptly as possible with the views and instructions of the Government of the United States.

I improve this opportunity, etc.,

TSUI KWO YIN.

Mr. Blaine to Mr. Tsui.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, October 6, 1890.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 1st instant, in which you recur to the subject of the note addressed by you to the Department on the 26th of March last, to which no formal reply has been made.

I am happy to confirm your surmise that the delay in making such a reply has not been due to any neglect or lack of appreciation of the representations you have made or of the importance of the peservation of the cordial and traditional relations of friendship which have subsisted between our two governments. The questions which you present have been and are now the subject of careful consideration on the part of this Government, and I hope to be able at an early day to convey to you the views of the President in an ample and formal manner.

In communicating to you this expectation, I desire to assure you of my appreciation of the sentiments of amity that pervade the note to which I now have the honor to reply.

Accept, etc.,

JAMES G. BLAINE.

Mr. Tsui to Mr. Blaine.

CHINESE LEGATION,

Washington, December 4, 1890. (Received December 5.)

SIR: From the several notes which have been addressed to your Department by this legation since the passage by the Congress of the United States of the exclusion act of October 1, 1888, it is known to you that my Government has earnestly desired that that honorable body should undo that act of hardship and treaty abrogation. I watched with interest the proceedings of the last session, and at its close it became my unpleasant duty to inform my Government that it had adjourned without taking any action looking to the repeal or modification of the act of 1888.

I am now in receipt of instructions from the Imperial Government, directing me to convey to you the disappointment it has experienced at the intelligence communicated by me, and to express to you the hope that during the session which convened on the 1st instant Congress may take such action as will assure the Imperial Government of the desire of that of the United States to maintain in full force and vigor the treaties entered into between the two nations, and thus renew and strengthen the friendly relations which have so long existed.

I hope that you will not interpret this note into any manifestation of impatience at the nonreceipt of the reply which was promised in your note to me of October 6 last. You will, I am quite sure, understand the natural desire of my Government (which makes it my duty at this time to again address you) to relieve the many thousands of my countrymen from the sad situation in which they have been placed by the passage of the law cited. The records of the custom-house at San Francisco alone show that over 20,000 Chinese subjects who had left their temporary homes and business in the United States, bearing with them, under the seal of the United States, certificates of their right to return, were, in violation of these certificates and of solemn treaty guaranties, absolutely and without notice excluded from the United States by that law. And so severely was that law enforced that those Chinese who were on the high sea at the time it was passed were forbidden to land at San Francisco and were driven back to China. The great pecuniary loss which these Chinese subject shave sustained on account of being excluded from their temporary homes and business in this country has been regarded by my Government as a serious hardship. Besides these, the law has been very oppressive and unjust in its effects upon a still greater number of Chinese subjects. Under the proprovisions of the treaty of 1880, the Chinese laborers then in the United States were guarantied the right "to go and come of their own free will and accord," but the act of 1888 nullifies this stipulation, and the Chinese laborers are therefore denied the privilege of a visit to their native land, or it must be made at the sacrifice of all their business interests in this country.

In view of the injustice and loss which has been and still is being inflicted by the operations of this law, my Government has felt it necessary that I should again make known to you its earnest desire that something should be done to alleviate the injuries being suffered on account of its passage.

I need hardly add that this representation is not made out of any disposition to aggravate the present unsatisfactory condition of our relations, but with the earnest hope that it may lead to some settlement which will cement our old friendship and create new relations of harmony and freer commercial intercourse.

I improve the opportunity, etc.

TSUI KWO YIN.

No. 48.]

COLOMBIA.

Mr. Abbott to Mr. Blaine.

[Extract.]

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Bogota, December 12, 1889. (Received January 13, 1890.) SIR: The consul at Colon, General Vifquain, has requested that the friendly offices of this legation may be employed in his behalf upon the following state of facts:

Mrs. S. H. Smith, who, I presume, was a citizen of the United States, and who died in Colon, left, inter alia, two tenement houses, situated in Colon upon land leased of the Panama Railroad Company. The consul, acting under section 10, article 3, of the consular convention of 1850, undertook to settle her estate. In pursuance thereof, he sold the two houses at auction in July, 1888, and applied the proceeds in settlement of debt.

On October 25, 1889, the local authorities intervened, and the local judge ordered all claims against the estate to be presented before his court and the houses to be sold in 180 days from that date. He, furthermore, put a receiver in possession of the houses and dispossessed the purchaser at auction sale, who was an American citizen. The details of the whole matter may be found in the letter of the consul to me, dated November 7, 1889, to which I refer, and a copy of which I inclose, excepting only the inclosures therein referred to, which are, I presume, on the files of the Department.

The request of the consul is that I apply to this Government to cause a committee to be appointed to examine the claims he has paid, and, on their report that they are correct, to legalize all his doings in the premises.

It seems plain that, if the consul has acted within the law, this Government should not be asked to legalize his doings, but rather a demand as of right should be made for the cessation of all interference by the local authorities.

But, if the consul acted contrary to law or exceeded his authority, then the good offices of this legation may well be employed in his be half.

It becomes, then, important to decide, before acting in the matter: (1) Whether a consul of the United States has the right to take possession of, inventory, and sell the personal property of a citizen of his country dying in Colombia, under and by virtue of the provisions of section 10, article 3, of the consular convention; and (2) whether the houses in question are real or personal property.

I do not deem myself justified in asking this Government to legalize Mr. Vifquain's acts, without instructions to that effect, as I should thereby admit that our consuls have no rights under the said section of the convention, an admission which might embarrass the Department in case it should hold that our consuls are entitled to settle

estates in such cases. On the other hand, a remonstrance, on the ground of an infringement of treaty stipulations, would as seriously embarrass the Department in case it should hold that under the present laws of Colombia our consuls are not entitled to act in such cases.

I have therefore concluded to submit the matter to the Department for instructions, with as full an explanation of the attitude of this Government and the local laws as I have been able to procure; and I shall await a reply by cablegram, or by mail, as may be deemed necessary. First. The question is as to a consul's right to settle estates of his countrymen dying here.

This right depends upon the provisions of article 3, section 10, of the convention, which, after defining what a consul may do in such cases, provides as follows:

But consuls shall not discharge these functions in those states whose peculiar legislation may not allow it.

When the convention was made there were no states in Colombia. The country was a centralized Republic, and there was no general law defining the rights of consuls in such cases. The estates of deceased American citizens were settled as were those of Colombians until this convention came into force.

Some years later, about 1858, New Granada became the United States of Colombia, in which were erected a number of partially independent States, which from January 1, 1860, made their own laws upon these and many other matters.

Under date December 14, 1870, Mr. Fish, Secretary of State, in his No. 31 to Mr. Hurlburt, then minister here, directed him to remonstrate against the course of the local authorities in Panama in interfering with the administration by the then consul at that city upon the estate of one J. J. Landerer.

The minister's remonstrance can not be found among the archives, but the long reply of the Government thereto, under date of April 28, 1871, after stating that information had been asked from the Panama authorities, goes on to claim that the whole matter must depend upon the law of that State; that the fact that that State was erected after the making of the convention does not imply, as "insinuated" by our minister in his remonstrance, that its laws can not deprive our consuls of the rights named therein; that Colombia recognizes the right of newly erected States in the United States to make prohibitory laws in this respect, as well as the right of the States existing in 1850, and claims reciprocity; that, "accepted this principle (of reciprocity), it is clear that the word states,' which is made use of in the convention, does not refer solely to those of North America, even although Colom bia (then New Granada) was not publicly divided in sections of that name, and even although this part of legislation was not conceded to them." Then follows an argument upon the tense of the word "permitir," i. e.," allow," and the conclusion that "it appears beyond doubt that it was sought to express the desire of the contracting parties to leave to the states or sections of both Republics complete liberty to permit consuls to exercise the powers referred to or to deprive them of such powers." The note also states that the laws of Panama then existing conferred upon the courts alone the settlement of estates, be the deceased a foreigner or a native.

I can find no further correspondence in this case, and so do not know the result, and this is the only case of which I have found any trace. I mention it as possibly throwing some light upon the probable atti tude of Colombia now.

In 1885 the United States of Colombia became the Republic of Colombia, the States being degraded to departments, and deprived of the power to legislate, except upon minor matters. The national law in force in the whole Republic since July 22, 1887, provides that, if a deceased person shall leave foreign heirs, the consul of the nation of these heirs shall have the right to name the "curador," who shall have the custody and administration of the property.

I inclose a copy and translation of a written statement of a Bogota lawyer, in which this law appears, together with its effect, leaving out the question of public treaties.

I have consulted two lawyers who stand high in the profession, and they inform me that a "curador" is more or less what we call an administrator; that the estates of all foreigners are, outside of treaty stipulations, to be settled in the manner indicated in said law; and that foreign consuls have no other rights than that of nominating the "curador."

Second. The second question is as to the character of the houses, whether they are real or personal estate. If they are real estate, then the consul has exceeded his authority.

On this point I inclose a copy and translation of the opinion of Messrs. Escobar & Gutierrez, lawyers, in relation to the same, in which the law in relation to the matter appears.

I have written Consul Vifquain to forward to the Department at once a statement of the terms of the lease under which the houses are permitted to stand upon the land of the railroad company.

I will add that the first law in New Granada upon the rights of consuls in such cases was passed, substantially, in the form in which it exists in the civil code of Cundinamarca, as noted in inclosure No. 2, on May 29, 1850, 25 days after the signing of the consular convention, and continued to be the law of the Republic up to January 1, 1860. Só that the statement in said inclosure, that the Spanish law was that in force up to that date, must be somewhat modified.

The question as to the houses has never been raised in these courts, so far as my lawyers know, and, if it had been, it would throw no light upon the matter, as the courts are not bound by precedent.

I trust that the suggestions herein made may be useful in the consideration of the case presented by the consul.

I have, etc.,

[Inclosure 1 in No. 48.]

JOHN T. ABBOTT.

Mr. Vifquain to Mr. Abbott.

CONSULATE of the UNITED STATES,
Colon, November 7, 1889.

SIR: I respectfully submit the following to your consideration: In July, 1888, I ordered sold at public auction by licensed auctioneers, after duly advertising, the houses belonging to the estate of the late Mrs. S. H. Smith. I had some doubt as to my right to selling [sic] those houses, yet, as claims were coming in at the consulate thick and fast, and there being no ready cash on hand, I wrote to the Department of State my dispatch No. 36 (inclosure No. 1), and I received in answer dispatch No. 30 (inclosure No. 2).

This dispatch from the State Department means that, if, in my judgment, I deemed it best for the estate to sell, that I should sell, and vice versa. Owing to the impending collapse of the canal, which was visible enough then, I deemed it best to sell, and so notified the Department of State in my dispatch No. 42 (inclosure No. 3).