CHINEE IMMIGRATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1843, 17 May 1888, Page 4

CHINEE IMMIGRATION.

Govebkment have certainly displayed no lack of promptitude m dealing with the Chinese difficulty, having already introduced a Bill to provide further safeguards against the possibility of a great influx of Mongolians. The measure which is now before Parliament, and which passed its second reading on Tuesday afternoon iB comprised within a compass of thirteen clauses, or we might say ten, as one is of course the usual short-title clause, and two are mere interpretation clauses* Clause three, the first operative clause, repeals the third section of the *• Chineso Immigration Act, 1881," and enacts m lieu thereof that the masters of any vessels bringing to any port m New Zealand a greater number of Chineso passengers than m the proportion of one to every hundred tons of the vessel's tonnage shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding one hundred pounds for each Chinese passeDger so carried m cxcesß, and the next following section raises the penalty for allowing any Chinese passenger to land before the ten pounds poll tax has been paid from twenty to fifty pounds. Jt is further provided that it shall be an offence similarly punishable to permit or suffer any Chinese to escapo from the vessel before the prescribed amount shall have been paid on his behalf, and makes the default m payment of the penalty for for such breach of the principal act to be liability to imprisonment for twelve months unless such penalty be sooner paid. Chinese immigrants who are British subjects are wholly exempt from the operation of the Act and a certificate of the Governor of any British Colony is to be sufficient evidence of the right to exemption. The poll tax is not to be payable m respect of any Chinese accredited to this colony by the Government of China, nor are the penalties or restrictions of tho s j ct to apply to the crews of Chinese vessels, saving that no Chinese sailor maj be discharged and landed within the. colony, nor ba suffered to go ashore except m performance of his duties., m connection with the vessel. Provision is made against the possibility of evading th-o Act by transhipment of Chinese frr, m one vessel to another, and the burden of proof of a right of exemption frora tlie operation of any part of the Act i\s to lie upon the person claimiug such exemption. All Chinese, except such as are natural born or naturalised British subjects, nro debarred from voting at local elections, and power is given to officers whose duty it is to prepare voting rolls to omit or. strike out therefrom the names of Chinese aliens, but notice must be sent to any Chinese whose nums is expunged, so that he can, if he be. able to prove his right thereto, to secure, fts restoration to roll. Altogether it will be seen that tho Bill is not the rabidly anti-Chinese measure whirjn some of its opponents have pictured, it ; indeed its main provision may be. said- to be simply the restricting of the number of Chinese that may bo carried by any one ship to one 'to each hundred tons. Ibis is identical with the Victorian law, and it, is, the evident desire of tho Grovernment to assimilate the law of New Zealand to that of tho sister colonies, and at the same time to join those colonies m urging that action should be taken by the Imperial Government, with a view to the obtainment of an Anglo-Chinese treaty, on tho lines of that recently entered into between China and the United States. We think there is every reason to hope thnt the united action on the part of Australasia will led lo this vory desirable result, and meanwhile tho Chinese Immigration Bill above referred to may be regarded as one of the first steps to- i wards that wished for consummation; I