THE CHINESE IMMIGRATION QUESTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5522, 7 December 1878, Page 3

THE CHINESE IMMIGRATION QUESTION.

It is probable that in a few days the citizens of'Wellington'will be asked in public meeting assembled to express their opinions on the question of Chinese immigration to this colony. The Mayor has been communicated with by the persons who are agitating the question; and be has expressed his sympathy with the feelings of those who have written to him, and has promised to convene a public meeting if a requisition is forwarded to him containing a sufficient number of signatures to warrant him in doing so. A petition to tho House of Representatives has bean drafted, and will be submitted to the meeting if one be called This sets out (X) That the petitioners firmly believe that the Empire of China, possessing four hundred millions, is able and will most certainly send, if permitted, during the next few years, many millions of a most servile and otherwise objectionable class of immigrants to these colonies, who on account of their cheap means of living will to a great extent supplant our people in all departments of labor where they are physically able to compete with us. (2,) That the Chinese emigration to these colonies is almost equivalent to slavery, and in soma respects worse than the Coolie labor system in the tropical colonies (which has often been objected to in the British Parliament), inasmuch as tho Coolie trade is usually under immediate supervision of British officials, whereas the Chinese Australian immigrants are entirely under the rule of their native headmen, both on the passage and for years after their arrival in the colonies. . Reference is then made to the exclusive trading of the Chinese, and to the fact that as soon as they make money they leave the colony, and then on their arrival in China purchase for a term of years vast numbers of their countrymen, in order to send them to the colonies, and will in all probability continue to do so “ until your honorable House and other similar assemblies enact laws to prevent the total swamping of the white races with semi-barbarous serfs.” Allusion is then made to the danger to passengers involved in allowing Chinamen to be sailors, also to the baneful effects arising from the immorality of the race, as proved to exist in centres of population on the Australian continent. It is further alleged that nearly 30 years experience has proved that the Chinese are not capable of understanding our political institutions, and cannot therefore be trusted with political power„and for that reason alone are undesirable colonists. Petitioners therefore urge that a tax of £— per head should be placed on all subjects of the Emperor of China coming here, &0., &c.