The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, APRIL 11, 1887. THE "YELLOW AGONY."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1529, 11 April 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, APRIL 11, 1887. THE "YELLOW AGONY."

Those who from the experience gained by actual residence m San Fran* cisco, and those also, who know something from what they have read of the evils of what is termed " the yellow agony" will regard with anything but complacency the announcement made the other day that between 30 and 40 Chinese laborers had arrived m Auckland under engagement, it was believed, to West Coast coal mine proprietors. For nothing could be more disastrous tz the well-being of the colony than the letting m of a flood of Mongolians labor to compete with the' European labor, with which the market is fully supplied, while the establishment of Chinese quarters m our chief towns, with their dens of immorality and dirt, would be a social disaster which could not be too deeply deplored, and the possibility of which must certainly be averted. We have no prejudice against the Chinese, and willingly admit that the presence of a few heie and there, scattered among our population, is an advantage rather than otherwise ; the Chinese market gardeners of our cities and towns, for example, doing good service to townspeople by supplying them with vegetables, m the cultivation of which they are adepts, and while they form but an infinitesimal percentage of the population their presence among us may not only be tolerated with equanimity but even regarded as desirable. But it is quite another matter when the Asiatic element assumes anything like large proportions, and when Chinese labor is brought into competition with that of Europeans to any great extent. For, independently of the danger to health and morals involved m the presence among us of a large Chinese population, it is to the last degree' impolitic to permit of the displacement of European m favor of Asiatic labor. For while the Chinaman can, and will, work for wages immensely lower than will any white man, he does so because he lives on rice and vegetables and indeed can thrive when a European would starve. Thus, while m the country, he purchases little or nothing from European storekeepers, consumes little or no meat, and spends the merest trifle m clothing, contributing, m consequence, scarcely anything to the Customs revenue, and supporting no industry of the colony; and, worse still, the money which his miserable style of living enables him to save he carries awjy with him to the Flowery Land, to which it is his one object to return. Thus the Chinaman is not a colonist m any sense of the term, he brings nothing into the colony, he displaces useful colonists, and ends by taking out of the country the money which, if earned by Europeans, would have remained m it. On all grounds, therefore, as we have already said, a large influx of Chinese is not only to be deprecated, but must be prevented. We had been under the impression that the Act passed some four or five sessions ago would have proved a sufficient safeguard. Under that Act, as our readers are aware, every Chinaman landing m New Zealand is required to pay for permission to set foot m the country, but it seems that — why we cannot understand — m the care of the Chinamen who landed at Auckland, as above mentioned, the payment of the head-money was only insisted upon m the case of ten or a dozen of them, the others being permitted to land upon the understanding that they were only visitors to the colony and under engagement to return to their native country at an early date. We were not aware that the provisions of the Act could be relaxed m this way, and if this can legally be done under the Act, as it at present stands, then the sooner the law is amended the better. It may be (indeed it seems likely) that Chinese labor js somuchcheaper than European, that it will pay employers to import it even if the landing fee be insisted upon m all cases, but if so, then the remedy is obviously to increase the fee from ;£io to or such larger amount as will effectually prevent the swamping of our labor market e in any direction by the importation of a horde of the almond-eyed subjects of His Imperial Majesty the Brother of the Sun and Moon.

Biliooanesa, drowsiness, jaundice, and rheumatism, Hop Bittern remove easily, if those pwi« by Amerwas Co, pet