Chinese in South Africa.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8196, 24 May 1906, Page 7

Chinese in South Africa.

The Question of Kcsponsibility. '• As a Jew," said Mr Hiischel Cohen to a Post reporter, " I have been extremely pained since my arrival in Australasia to notice so many attacks npon so-called Jewish capitalists in connection with the Chinese matter. Tho Jews, as a face, have suffered enough, and have had enough imaginary crimes imputed to them, but to attribute for one moment the introduction of Chinese labour into South Africa to Jewish capitalists only is extremely unfair. It should be remembered that the great majority of the leading mining houses in' the Transvaal aro certainly not Jewish. The present representative of the house of Eckstein, Sir James Percy Fitzpatrick, one of the most cultured and brilliant men in South Africa, and one of the foremost in the mining industry, is a Christian. Sir George Farrar, Messrs A. Bailey, J. B. Robinson, W. Dalrymple, R. G. Fricker Chaplin, H. B. Hollings, J. Dale, Lace Cullinan, Pullinger, George Goch Strubens, and many others included among the mining magnates, are certainly not Hebrews. Many of those possessing German names are erroneously supposed to be Jews. For instance, the house of Werner, Beit, and Company is generally supposed to be a Jewish firm Sir Julius Werner, A 1 fred Beit, and C. Rube are not Hebrews. They are, I believe, members of the Lutheran Church. Mr F. Eckstein, head of the Johannesburg branch of the firm, who j on account of his name is supposed to be a Jew, is the son of a Lutheran clergyman at Stuttgart. The principal Jewish house m Johannesburg is Lewis and Marks, an! I doubt very much whether they employ a single Chinaman. The only three other Jewish houses that I can call to mind are S. Newman and Co., the Albus, and the Barnatos. It will be at once appareat how very unfair it has been to brand the Jewish race with any obloquy, if obloquy there be, in connection with the endeavours to promote the mining industry, and when you think of the unmeasured invectives that have been cast upon the heads of the mining community in Johannesburg, and the frightful amount of abuse to which they have been subjected, it is only fair to remember that many of them are gentlemen of the highest integrity, English by birth, breeding and education, who would not be guilty for one moment of any of the dastardly things of which they have been accused. But the word Jew has been so often used in this controversy that it seems evident to me that the great majority of Australasian colonists must be under the impression that Johannesburg is controlled by an unscrupulous gang of Jewish financier?, whereas I maintain that it is the Christian financiers who very largely predominate and rule the 'mining business, and are responsible for the introduction of the Chinese into South Africa."