The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2373, 9 November 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1870.

We yesterday pointed out the necessity lor steps being taken to return men of intelligence to Parliament, in order that the Province may not lie disgraced and plundered through the blundering incompetence of its representatives. We little imagined that the columns of our contemporary would supply us this

morning with an instance so immediately to the point, that it should not be disregarded. We learn from the Daily Time s that Mr T. L. Shepherd aims at being one of Otago's members, and to this end has been figuring as a speech-maker at Wakatip and Arrowtown. Nobody who knows Mr Shepherd can mistake his qualifications for the place. If self-confidcncc bo a requisite for senatorial honors, he is not deficient in it; if “ gilt of gab ”be necessary, lie excels. He may not bo the best of logicians —that is a thing to be acquired only by some : he may not bo clear in thought nor soiuM in judgment very excellent qualifications, but not much in his lino as a politician ; but as for “ jawbation,” “ he’s a clipper and no mistake ! ” No matter what the subject—whether the forging of a horse-shoe nail, the construction of a railroad, or a journey to the moon—Mr T. L. Shepherd can talk about it. It must be on account of this gilt, in which it must be con fessed he might be backed to beat the most active-tongued old woman, that he is pronounced “a fit and proper “ person to represent the district in “ the General Assembly.” A fit and proper person ! Save the mark ! If he be returned, what will the Colony think of us when they hear his voice on the most important subjects of the day 'I Crude and ill informed in politics, he does not scruple to pander to national prejudices that both experience and reason tell us should not have existence amongst ns. He has been initiating a crusade against the Chinese, and telling the people at the diggings that their coming here is a serious evil, and that, in order to stop them, he would impose a poll-tax of £oo on each, and lay a heavy duty on rice. Most sapient legislator ! An ordinary politician would have thought the first proposition a heavy blow and great discouragement ; bait the second ! why, as it hits both Europeans and Chinese, it !mo I .ue.-.-o'!. n’! r r I!;- o : o:e j thing- Cfi tie p - a, -i 'ae' ■ :

obtain .dear views of the advantages and drawbacks of a Chinese population before concurring in their condemnation. We have frequently pointed out that they are not the class of miners we should like to see. They are not settlers; but then, as settlers will not come, Chinese are better than no population. Had it not been for them, our yield of gold would not have been much more than half what it is ; the upcountry stores and townships would not have been so prosperous as they are ; and the stagnation of trade, which, has pressed upon us so long, would have been intensified. It must be remembered that gold mining differs much from other industries. That which is obtained from the mine does not enter into competition in price witli the produce of another man’s labor, nor is the man mining in the next claim robbed of anything that belonged to him. The Chinese in this respect differ from Europeans. Briton competes with Briton for a Job ; but the Chinese, instead of reducing wages, tend to raise them, for they arc consumers as a rule ) but in very rare instances producers of anything but gold. The prejudice is that they get the gold, and take it awaiy with them ; but this is only partly true. They cannot live on air. They eat and drink, and pay for what they get; and what they take away is the difference between the cost of their living and their earnings. Tinware therefore a profit to the country, although a European population earning the same wages, and saving capital to the same extent, would bo preferable if they invested their savings in reproductive industry in the Province. While then we should much prefer seeing well-employed Europeans with wives and families to Chinese, it is very much to the advantage of the country to have so industrious and orderly a population as they are, in the absence of our own countrymen who will not come. We know there are those who aflect a pious horror at the thought that there arc idolaters amongst us, although, if they were not in Otago, they might be in a worse-mannered land. These good folks pull long yarns about the sad consequences of their devilries and alleged immoralities upon the European population. But this argument cuts two ways. It is more likely that these idolaters may bo brought under humanising and christianising influences by here, than that our own people will be dragged down to their less elevating creed. That morality and religion that can so soon amalgamate with idolatries so childish as are generally imputed to the Chinese, can have little elevating effect upon the hearts and lives of those who profess it : and those who fear so much for the danger to others of such contact, have an excellent pica for warning the one and converting the other—if they can. So far as we can see, there is move likelihood of raising the Chinese to our level, than of our people being dragged down to theirs. At any raft;, it would not be difficult to raise them to the iu-

tcllecfcnal level of one, whose mind is so blinded by prejudice, or who has so low an opinion of those whom he addressed, as not to see that there dwells in the Chinese a common humanity, that ought to secure for them like treatment that we accord to comers from all other nations.