But it will be more easy to see that both justice and courtesy are shown, as they ought to be shown, to other Chinese, if the law or treaty is framed as above suggested.  Examinations should be completed at the port of departure from China.  For this purpose there should be provided a more adequate Consular Service in China than we now have.  The appropriations both for the offices of the Consuls and for the office forces in the consulates should be increased.

As a people we have talked much of the open door in China, and we expect, and quite rightly intend to insist upon, justice being shown us by the Chinese.  But we cannot expect to receive equity unless we do equity.  We cannot ask the Chinese to do to us what we are unwilling to do to them.  They would have a perfect right to exclude our laboring men if our laboring men threatened to come into their country in such numbers as to jeopardize the well-being of the Chinese population; and as, mutatis mutandis, these were the conditions with which Chinese immigration actually brought this people face to face, we had and have a perfect right, which the Chinese Government in no way contests, to act as we have acted in the matter of restricting coolie immigration.  That this right exists for each country was explicitly acknowledged in the last treaty between the two countries.  But we must treat the Chinese student, traveler, and business man in a spirit of the broadest justice and courtesy if we expect similar treatment to be accorded to our own people of similar rank who go to China.  Much trouble has come during the past Summer from the organized boycott against American goods which has been started in China.  The main factor in producing this boycott has been the resentment felt by the students and business people of China, by all the Chinese leaders, against the harshness of our law toward educated Chinamen of the professional and business classes.  This Government has the friendliest feeling for China and desires China’s well-being.  We cordially sympathize with the announced purpose of Japan to stand for the integrity of China.  Such an attitude tends to the peace of the world.

The civil service law has been on the statute books for twenty-two years.  Every President and a vast majority of heads of departments who have been in office during that period have favored a gradual extension of the merit system.  The more thoroughly its principles have been understood, the greater has been the favor with which the law has been regarded by administration officers.  Any attempt to carry on the great executive departments of the Government without this law would inevitably result in chaos.  The Civil Service Commissioners are doing excellent work, and their compensation is inadequate considering the service they perform.