THE CHINESE IN AMERICA.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1300, 20 May 1878, Page 3

THE CHINESE IN AMERICA.

A report on the Chinese in the United States has just been made to the House of Representatives by the committee on education and labor, which contains some interesting facts as to the rapid increase of the number of Celestials in that country. The first treaty between China and the United States was ratified in July, 184*4. Though it granted no rights or privileges to the Chinese, yet immediately after its ratification they began* to settle in the State of California. Their numbers, few at first, gradually and steadily increased up to the spring of 1876, when the people of the Pacific slope became alarmed at the great influx of this class of immigrants, and by means of the Press and public meetings endeavoured to check it. The effect of this excitement against the Chinese, and the consequent danger to their safety and welfare, was, however, of short duration. The number of immigrants for the quarter ending June 30th, 1877, which was the second quarter following the Chinese agitation, was 6691, the highest ever reached. The rate of increase has been very rapid. Dividing the lust two decades into periods of five years, the average number of immigrants for the first period from 1855 to 1859 inclusive, is ascertained to be 4530 ; for the second period, from 1860 to 1864, it is 6600 ; from 1860 to 1870, 9311; from 1871 to 1874, 13,000. In other words, the increase for the four periods of five years each has been at the rate of 50 per cent. The lowest estimate of the Chinese in the Pacific States is 150,000. Accepting this as correct, it would seem that at the above rate of increase, and after deducting the large number who return, the Chinese population will before very long exceed the male adult population of Americans in those States, and all other races combined. Even at present it closely approaches the number of voters, and the anticipation that this rate of immigration will continue seems well founded. The condition of the labouring classes in China is a hard and and miserable one. They find in America high wages and a congenial climate, and they are only separated from that country by a comparatively narrow ocean, pacific in temper as well as in name.