These two weighty committees concur in recognizing the equity of China, if not her proprietorship, in this fund. If it be true that the surplus belongs to China, or that it is hers in equity, it will be difficult to defend any proposition to return the amount indirectly, as in a college or buildings for the accommodation of the United States on Chinese soil. If returned at all, it must be directly, and in the form of money. What right have we to determine how to expend in China or for China that which is hers? To do so would not be generous, even if it were just. It would be ostentatious, and might be offensive. It would assume that we can employ the money of China, even in China, for her own benefit, better than she can herself. At all events, it would recognize an undefined title in China, to which we deferred. THE CHINESE HAVE NOT REFUSED TO RECEIVE IT. But it cannot be disguised, that, when the two Secretaries of State concurred in the idea of appropriating this fund to the erection of buildings, also when Mr. Burlingame made his earnest effort for its appropriation to a college at Peking, and when two successive Presidents invited Congress to consider what should be done with it, there was an impression not only that the Chinese would not allow the surplus to be returned, but that they had peremptorily declined to entertain the proposition. Such was the impression when the attention of the Committee was first called to this fund, now many years ago. And it cannot be doubted that this impression has exercised an influence in preventing frank and explicit action on the question, according to the obvious requirement of justice. The Committee have endeavored to ascertain the ground for the statement that the Chinese had refused to receive the surplus. It seems, on inquiry, to be a report or rumor started nobody knows precisely how or when. Thus we find Mr. Seward saying, in his Report of February 18, 1868:-- “It appears, that, when it was ascertained that this surplus would remain, the return of it to the Chinese Government was proposed, but that they declined to accept it.”[132] And Mr. Fish, in a similar Report, under date of March 10, 1870, says likewise:-- “The Secretary of State is informed, that, after the awards were completed, and it was definitely known that there would be a surplus, Mr. Burlingame informally proposed to return whatever should be left. The Chinese, however, did not seem disposed to accept it.”[133]