CHINA MOBILIZED. [From the Spectator.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 800, 2 April 1853, Page 4

CHINA MOBILIZED. [From the Spectator.]

Among us there are strange events,—continental revolutions, the ups and downs of empire, the flight of vast numbers across the Atlantic and Pacific in search of gold : but an event stranger than these is passing nearly unnoticed in the Eastern hemisphere. We are amazed at the exodus from Ireland —the going out of the Celtic population ; but what is that to (be going out of Chinese people ? The stationary empire in motion at last; the populace or the Celestials moved by a common impulse swarming into the goldbearing regions of the outsidest barbarians? Nearly a hundred years ago, Goldsmith treated the town to the imaginary experience of a Chinaman in England : had he lived in our day, he might have learned the actual impressions of a sou of the Flowery Land; and Montesquieu might have personally tested the truth of his own remark, that the Chinese are " le peuple le plus fourbe de la tprre." It is no longer a miracle to see a Chinaman of " breezy breeches" in any latitude. They have broken the bonds of habit and gone forth, and are now in every land. They swarm in the islands of the Pacific ; they serve in Australia; they sit down in tbe cities on the Western coasts of South America ; they colonize portions ot California; a junk has even anchored in the Thames, and a live Mandarin figured at the Greit Exhibition. A few facts will illustrate this notable migration of a people who have been singularly homekeeping. Hitherto, according to Mr. M'Cullocb, Chinese emigration his been mainly from tbe province of Fo-kien, opposite Formosa; and has consisted more of exploring and trading patties than permanent absentees. Thus the Chinese for several centuries worked the silver and diamond mines of Borneo and visited Celebes. But now the sources of the emigration have extended and embrace tbe neighbouring province. It was remarked by Mr. Asa Whitney, in explaining his projected railway from tbe Atlantic to the Pacific, that the islands in the latter ocean afforded a vast outlet for the surplus population of China; and be expressed his belief that the Chinese wouhl swarm and occupy these islands. They have outstripped the expectations of Mr. Whitney ; they have occupied California with a detachment of their myriads. Four years have sufficed to bring nearly thirty thousand Chinamen to San Francisco ; to find them writing letters to the newspapers, and raising villages named after the chief towns of their native land. In 1848, there were in San Francisco only two men and one woman from China; by the end of 1849, these had increased to nearly 800 men and only two women; in 1850, they numbered upwards of 4000 men and seven women; in 1851, this number had increased to 7500; and by August 1852 there had arrived altogether in that year 20,000 Chinamen, making a grand total in California of 27,500; but allowances for deaths and further migrations reduced these to 27,058 men and twenty women. These emigrants come from the Canton river, and the rising port of Shanghai. They live and work together, chiefly in the mines; showing that their old habits of acting as commercial middlemen have been broken through. This enormous Chinese migration is a portentous sign of the great activity of the world. Here is the reign of Confucius coming to an end; here is an active, enterprising, astute population for Polynesia, opening up endless vistas for future commerce. The Weatern Pacific will yet see a great historical people on its shores. The share of England in this striking change —in tbis mobilization of China —is obvious. We have not only opened the Canton river for ourselves, but for the Chinese. Macartney, Amherst, Pottioger, have delivered the people from the bondage of ages ; and, like all other nations, tbi Chinese are consciously mingling in the march of tbe world towards unknown and un-looked-for destinies. The Americans have con-

tinued what we began; they too are visiting China, but as friends, not coercers ; and, however any Chineie philosopher might mistrust the race which entered Texas in such friendly gnise, he would find some difficulty in persuading hit countrymen to give up the golden intercourse on the ground that at no distant date China might prove to be to America what India is to Englaud.