LIONEL TERRY’S “SHADOW.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1574, 3 October 1905, Page 3

LIONEL TERRY’S “SHADOW.”

The following are further extracts I from the pungent work of Lionel Terry, the much-travelled man who shot the poor old Chinaman in Wellington : With regard to British possessions, the most important colony is, undoubtedly, Canada, and I will therefore give a few interesting particulars concerning it. The climate of Canada is eminently suitable for the production of a healthy and vigorous white population, andher resources can only be described as magnificent. “ Yes, Canada is indeed growing great and wealthy,” says her sister colonies, when they learn from her gilt-edged newspapers of the tremen dous increase in her population, of the thousands of acres of land that have been taken up, of the number of mining licenses that have been granted and paid for, and, above all, of the record surplus of revenue for the year. And, beyond a few disjointed remarks condescendingly vouchsafed by the same corrupt press whenever anything impossible of concealment occurs, what do her sister colonies know of the internal rottenness of Canada. Do they know that her political condition is second only to that of the United States of America in point of corruption ? Have they heard of the locked-out British workmen who were kept on the verge of starvation throughout a whole bitter Canadian winter in order to compel them to work for Chinaman’s wages ? Did they, read of the poor Scottish coal*miners who were enticed by false pretences to emigrate to British Columbia by the then Premier of that province, and who, when they discovered the cruel trick that had been practised upon them, with true British pluck preferred to wander penniless into a foreign country rather than work with Chinamen for wages upon which they could barely exisc ? Do they know of the Frazer River Fisheries dispute, in which the military authorities were prevailed upon by a capitalist-worshipping provincial government to protect the cherished alien from the white man driven desperate ? Do they know that the result today of that action is that in place of a sturdy, healthy colony of white fishermen, the very class of men so urgently required to supply the strength of the Pacific Fleet, there exists on the banks of the Frazer River avast conglomeration of dark, dirty hovels, haunted by the outcast of Asia ? Do the newspapers of Canada inform the world that the laws relating to the employment of alien labor have been openly violated by the very men who are trusted and paid by the people to uphold and enforce them ? | And yet these things are true. About four years ago, in consequence of frequent disturbances between white men and Asiatic aliens, a Royal Commission was appointed by the Dominion Government to enquire into the effect of Chinese and Japanese immigration into British Columbia. The evidence secured, in spite of rampant intimidation, was overwhelmingly antagonistic to the alien element ; and the work of the Commission was nearly completed when the Canadian Premier, Sir Wilfred Laurier, made the astounding statement that, whatever the report . of the Commission might be, no legislation restricting Japaneseimmigration would be allowed, as it would conflict with Imperial policy ! Imperial policy !—to sacrifice Imperial interests! . Imperial policy !—to rob the Briton of his means of livelihood, his birthright, and hand it over to the scum of the earth! ' It becomes almost impossible to write dispassionately of such monstrous outrages as these. I repeat now, what I stated before the Commission just referred to, there is only one method of ridding the Empire of the alien scourge, and that is revolution. And revolution is inevitable when I Britons awaken to the peril which I threatens them—provided that Britons exist. But to return to the statement made by the Dominion Premier ; how does it compare with the excuse tendered by Mr Lyttelton, the Colonial Secretary, in reply to the protest made by the Australasian Colonies against the importation of Chinese slavery into South Africa ?