CHINESE IMMIGRATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 36, 11 February 1879, Page 2

CHINESE IMMIGRATION.

[The Chinese Question in Australia, 1878-79, edited by L. Kong Meng, Cheok Hong Cheong, and Louis Ah Mouy. Melbourne : F. F. Bailliere, 1879. No. 11. Our first notice of this work concluded with an extract in which the writers showed the description of education bestowed upon the children in China. They then proceed to take exception to people thuß educated being stigmatised as " ignorant pagans " and " filthy barbarians." It is alleged that Mr Hayter, the Government statist, asserts that on an average criminality is less prevalent amongst the Chinese than amongst the Englieh population iu Victoria It is argned that it is shameful, because immorality does exist amongst some of the Chinese, to raise a clamor against the whole of them. Extracts are given from the English newspapers of 1841-42, showing to what extent the most horrible and loathsome crimes were at that time committed in Great Britain, and

the question is then put: " What would have i been said if our Emperor and Mandarins, ' who were in the habit of reading the English ] newspapers; forwarded to tlie missionaries iu China, had conCludad that Great Britain ] must be a nation of devils, because- the atrocities recorded in those publications, day after day, were so revolting; and that, therefore, the British must be kept out of our i country at all hazards?" The ingenuousness of the following reply to the objections that the Chinese are not ' accompanied by their womeukind is open to i Question, but we ({note it for what it is worth :— , "It is objected that the Chinese do not • bring their wives and sisters with them. Can it be wondered at ? We have shown what ' scandalous treatment they received ofi the ' Buckland; and is it to be imagined, that, when the news of this atrocity went home to China, any woman of average self-respect would expose herself to be chased through the country by a band of infuriated ruffians, and to see her children burnt to death, pertiaps, in her husbands flaming tent ? Treattd as pariahs and outcasts by the people of this great "free" country, the Chinamen iu Victoria have hitherto had but scanty encouragement to invite their wives to accompany or to follow them. Subject to be insulted and assaulted by the "larrikins " of Australia, what Chinaman could be so destitute of consideration for the weaker sex as to render them liable to the same ignominious and contumelious treatment ? " As a piece of special pleading, the following cm the wages question is worth reading : " There reinaius to notice one very influential cause of prejudice agaiust our countrymen in Australia. It seems to be imagined that they will bring down the rate of wages in these colonies, to the detriment of European workmen. Is this a real or a sentimental grievance? Let us look at it all round. That the earnings of the Chinese labourer in his native land are quite inconsiderable by comparison with the rate of wages current in Australia, is undeniable. But human nature is human nature all the world over; and the Chiuaman is just as fond of ruouey, and just as eager to earn as ■ much as he cau, as the most grasping of his competitors. There are Irishmen in this colony who have known what it is to work for four or five shillings a week iu the island they came from ; but when they emigrate to Victoria, they are not content to put up with lesser wages than they find other farm hands earning. And bo it will be, after a very little time, with our own countrymen here. Living among people who have invented thouannUs of artificial .wants, and thousands of means of gratifying them, the expenditure of the Asiatic will soon rise to the European level, because his habits and his mode of living will approximate to those of his neighbours; and, as it is, it cannot have escaped the observation of persons who have been brought much into contact with the Chinese in Victoria, that the diet of such of them as are tolerably prosperous becomes more generous and costly in proportion to the improvements of their circumstauces, and that those who marry and settle here conform to British methods of housekeeping and are not less liberal and hospitable than their Europeanjfellow-colonists. Iu California in the farm, the factory, the workshop, and the laundry, they have proved invaluable. They have been found to be sober, assiduous, apt, docile, and praiseworthy. Their greatest enemies aud calumniators were the idle the dissolute, and the drunken ; {men who insisted upon receiving very high wages for working during three days of the week, aud who devoted the other three to dissipation and debauchery. To such persons, the patient, ploddiqg habits of the Chinamen, always at his post, never loafing about, never in liquor, and never plottiug and caballing to drive his employer into a corner, and extirt higher wages from him, were an intolerable offeuee. And thus our countrymen iu San Francisco were cordially detested and cruelly maltreated by the "bummer," the "hoodlum," and the stump-orator. These have raised a violent outcry against the industrious and inoffensive Asiatic, and have been foremost in demanding his immediate expulsion from the country ; no matter at what cost to some of its leading industries." Keference is made to Hepworth Dixon's "White Conquest," in order to show the cruel treatment to which the Chinese have been exposed in California, where, it is asserted, they are "the victims of base, brutal, and cowardly usage at the hands of a great aud powerful people, who prefaced their Declaration of Independence with the following impressive words: ' We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created equal; tbat they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalterable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' " Then comes the following, evidently told with the view of showing the superiority of the Chinaman to his white brother : — " Let us see what one of our countrymen thought of them, as indicated by a little incident recorded by Mr Hepworth Dixoa in the work previously quoted from. A gentleman in San Francisco related to him the following anecdote:— "Only the other day, in our rainy season, when the road was fifteen inches deep in Montgomery-street, a yellow chap, in fur tippet and purple satin gown, was crossing over the road by a plank, when one of our citizens, seeing how nicely he was dressed— more like a lady thau a tradesman, ran on the plank to meet him, and, when the fellow stopped and stared, just gave him a little jerk, and whisked him with a waggish laugh into the bed of slush. Ha ! ha ! You should have seen the crowd of people mocking the impudent (!) heathen Chinea as he picked himself up in his soiled tippet and satin gown ! No white man can conceive the impudence of these Chinese. Moon-face picked himself up, shook off a little of the mire, and, looking mildly at our worthy citizen, curtseyed like a girl, saying to him in a voice tbat every one standing round could hear, ' You Christian; me Heathen. Good-bye.' " Now, the Americans and the English base their religion, we believe, on the New Testament; and will any one be good enough to tell us which acted most in accordance with the precepts of your sacred book — the Christian who perpetrated Buch a wanton and unprovoked outrage upon a respectable stranger, or the poor " heathen," who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, and the calmness of whose well-governed temper couid not be roused to passion by this dastardly and malicious assault ? If acts like these are the outcome of your Christianity, let tia entreat you to send no < more missionaries to China for the purpose ] of converting or perverting our countrymen." i We think we may justly retaliate upon « Messrs Kong Meng and Co., and ask whether it is fair to take the blackguard who thus acted in San Francisco as a representative of the Christian nations. Then we have ' an earnest appeal to respect the treaty entered into between their Majesties I of England and China, and a retnon- ' stranee against the Chinese being hunted down as if they were no many wild beasts, 4 and being told, "You must not work in , Australian ships or factories; you must not earn a livelihood by hawking or by bandi- 1 craft iu these colonies. You must leave off cultivating gardens, and fabricating furni- " ture, and following the industrial employ- j ments you have adopted ; and you must ( either atarve, beg, steal, or vanish." The pamphlet concludes as follows : — <' Iu the name of heaven, we ask, where ■ *

your justice ? Where your religion ? Where your morality ? Where your sense of right and wrong ? Where your enlightenment ? Where yonr love of liberty ? Where your respect for international law ? Which are the '« pagiin9 " — you or we ? And what has become of those sublime and lofty sentimeuts of human brotherhood and cosmopolitan friendship and sympathy which are so often on your lips, and are proclaimed so widely from pulpit, press, and platform ? Tsae-Ktlng, one of the disciples of Confucius, asked the latter ou a certain occasion, "Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice ior all one's life ? " The master answered. " is not receiprdcity snch a word." meaning thereby what was stalight by your own Great Teacher. " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even So" tt> them.'/ Upon this reciprocity we take our stand, if you renounce it; if you say, •' might is right, and treaties are not worth the parchment they are written on ;" j if you assert that this large and comparatively unoccupied portion of the earth's surface is to be fenced off from a race of people who are geographically so near to it, and who are so well adapted by nature and temperament for the cultivation of extensive regions of it, from which Europeaus will gradually wither away ; if yon* substitute arbitrary violence, hatred, and jealousy, for justice, legal ityj and right; it may be that you will succeed in carrying your point, it may be that a great wrong will be accomplished by the exercise of sheer force, and the weight of superior numbers; but your reputation among the nations of the earth will be irretrievably injured and debased, and the flag of which you are so justly proud will no longer be the standard of freedom and the hope of the oppressed, but it will be associated with deeds of falsehood and treachery, with broken faith, with a violated treaty, with the pitiful triumph of strength over weakness, of European gaile and selfishness over Asiatic sincerity and confidence, and with conduct which no sophistry can reconcile with the precepts of your religion, with the canons of your morality, with the spirit of your laws, with the policy of your wisest statesmeu, with the voice of conscience, and with the character and traditions of the paople of Great Britaiu." Messrs Kong Meng and his brother editors have made out a remarkably good case for their fellow-countrymen, but, with all their ability, they have failed to convince us that it would be a good thiug for New Zealand to be handed over to a swarm of Chinese.