The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2101, 8 June 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1907.

A LIVING DANGER. All too unfrequently is tho attention of the public of New Zealand directed to a matter which in the future will demand the serious attention of the colony—the Chinese question. Occasionaclly there is seen a short agitation on tho question, but as often as not tho agitation is by somo means squelched, and tho public in a perfectly satisfied mood takes its attention from tlio matter, and the steady march of tho Asiatic into the colony is allowed to proceed unchecked.

. Attention is now drawn to tho question by recent j)roceedings in the Christchurch Police Court. One Lim Cheong was married to a European girl eighteen years of age, by the Registrar of Marriages, who appears not to have taken any trouble to find out if the girl were really of age. After some time the bride found that life with Clieong was hardly what she liked. She loft him and was granted a maintenance order in the Magistrate’s Court; but for some unknown reason she decided to live with Cheong again. It was not long before the parties were in Court again, when the bride gave evidence that' her diet while with Cheong consisted of pork and rice, and that she was given no money to keep herself. It needs only a few such cases to thoroughly demonstrate that any assimilation of an Eastern and a V estei;n race is practically impossible. There may be exceptions, but as a general rule unions between Chinese and European women are usually unhappy, and further the cause of much harm. Beyond the question of the happiness of individuals, however, there is a great principle involved. It is only tho lowest class of Chinese who emigrate from their native land, and wherever they havo settled they have always proved themselves undesiiables. At tho present moment, perhaps, we do not feel the presence of the Mongolian to any great extent’; but he works slowly and unseen. Wo owe it to posterity that we shall not leave as a legacy the Chinese taint rooted firmly in the soil of the colony; and one means by which this can in a measure be accomplished is by making illegal any marriage between Chinese and Europeans.