THE FLOWERY LAND AND THE CHINESE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5530, 17 December 1878, Page 2

THE FLOWERY LAND AND THE CHINESE.

East evening the Rev. Dr. Roaeby delivered a lecture at St. John’s Presbyterian Church on the subject of “The Flowery Land and the Chinese.” Professor Kirk, F.L.S., occupied the chair, and there was a fairly good attendance. After proceedings had been opened by prayer offered by the Rev. James Paterson, the Chairman introduced the lecturer, and spoke of the interest attaching to the subject. Dr. RgsBBV was well received. He said when he promised to deliver , the lecture ho had no idea that the subject was engrossing so much attention , in the City of Wellington, The lecture had been originally delivered in Dunedin in aid of the Chinese Famine Fund, and anything he might say would not be his own judgment so ranch as certain facta which ought to be considered by anyone forming ft judgment. When it was remembered that every third pulse that beat in the world was that of a Chinese, and when was considered the vast area of China, its comparatively high civilisation, the ingenuity of its inhabitants, its commercial importance, the importance of his subject must at least be admitted. He referred to the physical features of the country, its climate, its dense population, and its principal national works, not forgetting the great wall and the huge canal, 1000 miles long, running north and south. It wa* & remarkable feature in its social fabric that intelligence took the first place, while the next in order of-estimation was the tiller of the soil. The most highly appreciated man except the scholar was he who could from the smallest plot of ground feed the largest number of mouths. . The Chinese Government might bo described as being a paternal patriarchal tribal despotism. Amongst other good features was the value set upon; education. Education was the passport to the highest society, and no position of distinction was acquired without first passing an academic test. Perhaps it was not a high standard as judged by the enlightened Western nations of to-day, still it was valuable as a mental exercise, and did not deserve the sneers which had been cast at it. After alluding to the antiquity of the first recognised dynasty he dealt at some length with the bold •Che-Whang-Tee reign, in which the great wall was built, and the empire thoroughly consolidated, and the famous dynasty of Han. He traced down the successive dynasties of China till the Tartars supplied the regnal family, and the various incidents of historical fame down to the treaty of last year, by which the freedom of English trade in the ports of the groat empire was thoroughly secured. Next came a luminous reference to the extraordinary hieroglyphics! character, and the difficulty of learning the language, owing to its numerous dialects. When, however, a book was once translated into the Chinese language it was accessible to all, owing to the universal provision for education securing universal ability to read. Thus, when the translation of the Bible was completed five years ago, that great book was effectually p’aced in the hands, not only of the most highly cultured in the laud, but of the veriest clodhopper sowing rice on the mudflats of the Yang-Tyse can nad. The lecturer, after a reference to the peculiar features of the spoken tongue, said as to religion it seemed beyond dispute that the Chinese were Monotheists, though there had been great difficulty in arriving at the exact word which in the Chinese language represented God. The wonderful ethical system of Confucianism was referred to, also Buddhism, the prac icaV religion of ninety-nine out of every hundred of the Chinese. He then passed on to deal with their literature, quutinga number of apothegms and proverbs which appeared in the “ Melbourne Review’* last year, having been collected by Dr. Legge, o’ Brighton. Some of the peculiar national, social, aud personal customs of the race were referred to, and after an allusion to the Chinese as producers, agriculturists principally, Dr. Roseby closed his lecture as follows: —• Bui it is time, and perhaps we are now in a position, to sum up the note-worthy features of the Chinese character. They are industrious and gifted with rather an imitative ingenuity than with creative genius. The upper classes are distinguished for a great, perhaps affected, gravity of manner and a scrupulous ceremony; the lower classes for their joyous merriment, their patience, their perseverance, and contentment. Speaking of the contentment of the people, it is remarkable how little they are enamored of our Western manners and civilisation. They emphatically prefer their own. “ Progress," says Consul Medhurst, “ progress to the Chinese mind represents the free introduction into the country of a pushing, selfwilled, impracticable, and eccentric race (he means ourselves) whose notions and habits are uttterly at variance with anything to which they have hitherto been accustomed. The laboring classes contemplate progress with an indefinite fear that it cannot co-exist with the means of livelihood on which they and their fathers have depended for generations.*' The Chinese are commonly spoken of as a traitorous and dishonest people. The authority which X have just quoted gives a very different account of them. He says, “ As far as my own experience of thirty years* residence in the country is to be relied on, 1 can vouch for never having lost a single article, save a small revolver.’ Considering the great difficulty that must be incessantly felt in feeding so vast a population, the Chinese cannot be regarded as foul feeders. They will not stick at the flesh of a dog, or horse, or cat, when they can get nothing else, but their food is chiefly vegetable, and in drink they are strictly temperate. They are rather a superstitious than a religious people. They are, on the whole, better educated, in the common school sense,. than the mass of Europeans. So long as they are treated with justice and firmness no people are more tractable and accessible. They have a genius for trade, and have shown in many directions a spirit of enterprise for which their immobility has scarcely prepared us. Their literary pride has led them to treat with contempt the attempts of foreign missionaries to reach them through their own language. The majesty of their Emperor still disdains to receive the representative of any Western potentate without the koo-tow, a humiliating obeisance, which Ambassadors of course refuse to pay. The most distant emigrant looks back upon the home of his ancestors as the Flowery Land, the happiest and dearest spot on earth; and, disappointed in his hope of return, he makes it his dying charge that his bones shall bo transported and interred in its holy dust.. Even the meanest of the “ sons of Ham" would scorn to be treated as a denizen of nny other State. He repudiates our offer of naturalisation ; it is tlie solace of the beggar in his penury, as it is the boast of the wealthy merchant in hie pride, that ho ie & “Celestial,” a

citizen of the true kingdom of heaven. Of the future of this great people who can venture to apeak? That they will f-r ever refuse to share in the ten thousand improvements offered them hj a We tern civilisation no one can believe; that they will slowly, very slowly doubtless admit what elements of progress and of higher civilisation are now pressing upon them at every available p ant, is, I think, cer tain ; that they will embrace Christianity I am as sure as that the world's Redeemer is also Its King ; hut that their civilisation or their Christianity will ev**r be of a Western type no one, I think,who koo a anything of the matter will for a moment believe. . They will become more enlightened, more civilised, more humanised ; they will become .Christian ; but what they have been for the last forty centuries, with scarcely any variation, adhering to ancestral customs with a tenacity which looks more like the instinct of the beaver or of the bee than human intelligence ; what they have been during &U those changeless ages, presenting to-day in the very form of their villages and the construction of their dwellings the aspect of a Tartar camp,—that I believe they will continue to be to the last syllable of their recorded history : they will become Christians, but they will never cease to bo Chinese. But I must hasten to a conclusion. A few observations on what is known as the Chinese question—a question on which the people of Wellington are invited to deliver a judgment tomorrow—may fitly close this lecture. The quest!* n is one of uo slight difficulty. The issne is not ft simple and direct hut a very complicated one. Let us try with caution-* footsteps to thread our way, and unbiassed by prejudice and passion, to ascertain the rights and wrongs of this angry controversy. As a general principle, no doubt, as English people have laid it down, intercourse among the various raos and nations of the earth should bo free. But with (his we have always associated another principle, that the race which represents the higher and nobler civilisation has a natural and Divine right, not indeed to oppress, but to have sovereignty and control over those of baser condition. Aa right has everywhere Divine authority over wrong, truth over falsehood, and culture over ignorance, so the higher type of civilisation has—for its own and the world’s best interests—authority a.id rule over a lower type of civilisation, and over savageiem. That was the justification of the Hebrew conquest of Canaan, the Homan conquest of England, the English conquest of India, and our own occupation of New Zealaud. It is to that principle that we owe it that North America is uo longer in the possession of a few tribes of Indian hunters and fishermen, and that Australia is no longer occupied by a few thousand wiudenug savages. The progress of the world, and the elevation of th*human race, are secured by the practical assertion of this natural pre-eminence on the part of the superior races. And it is the right, of course, of the superior, the more highly civilised race, to take all measures to secure what ever ground it baa won. and to protect itself against whatever threatens to weaken its power, or to corrupt and deteriorate itself. Its culture, its elevation, and its pre-eminence are a solemn trust. They are held for the world's benefit. But, as with everything else, its first duty is self-preservation. Its beneficent authority comes to an end if it suffer anything to overpower its strength or to deteriorate it? character. The question, therefore, resolves itself into this. Does the presence of the Chinese in onr midst operate injuriously to our higher civilisation : Does it threaten to deteriorate our morals and to debase our character ? I think there can be uo doubt that Chinese immigration, in any considerable amount, has this tendency. I have given the son of Ham a fair character for decency, virtue, and good conduct in his own land and in the midst of his own family. But I am afraid the members of the Mongolian race that find their way abroad. are not among the best of their race. Of the 10,000 Chinese re.-ident in New South Wales, half are opium smoker-*, only 180 are married, these to our own countrywomen ; while almost an equal number of our countrywomen in New South Wales are liv ng among the Chinese in a condition n<>t to be described. The prospect of any considerable enlargement of that state of things is not a pleasant one. Still I am not prepared to say that the matter has yet assumed such a form in any of these colonies as to constitute a serious social danger. Our jmt attitude appears to me to be one of humane and generous but yet of cautions vigilance. The Chinese is not a colonist. His contact with European civilisation tends, I fear, rather to degrade than elevate him. His own civilisation suits him better; ho ia a better mao in his own land and among his own kin than he is amongst u j . And if he gets no good for himself, certainly he does no good to us. Hi* moral and social Influence in oar midst is distinctly deteriorative. There is another aspect of this question, on which 1 will be content to add but a p tssing sentence. I have no sympathy with the outcry against the Chinese on the ground of their competing with European labor. Englishmen are distinguished the world over for their praise of an open market, equal competiti n, and free trade. That is the principle on which we have ourselves insisted in our dealings with China, and it is this principle which we have hitherto allowed in their intercourse with us. I am not prepared to surrender that principle. If we English people spent one-fourth of the money on the education of our children and in teaching them a trade which we spend in drink, we would have no need to fear the com petition of the Chinaman in the occupation of a hewer of wood and a drawer of wat r. While, however, I would not surrender that principle which is the characteristic glory of England’s commercial intercourse with other nations, I frankly admit that it should be so applied aa not to injure the self-respect of our countrymen. The association of Chinese in the same employment with Englishmen is not a desirable thing; and the disregard of all considerations of flesh and blood, of nationality and race, for the mere consideration of a larger dividend, is something which no patriot or Christian can fail to emsure. Whether the A.S.N. Company are doing that or no, whether there is any danger of its being done here, and what precautions should be taken against its being done—all that I must leave to the candor, rather perhaps to the rhetoric, of to-mor-row evening's meeting. One thing, and only one, I would desire to emphasize ere T resume zny Beat. In all our discussions concerning the Chinese question lot ns remember that they are our fellow-men. They are not Englishmen; they are n >t Anglo-Saxons; but they are men. They are not our ancestors, as the Gauls and Teutons are; they are not our cousins, as the Latin races are; —they claim no nearer relationship than this : They are children of the same God ; they are brethren of the same Christ; they are therefore our brethren—they are our fellow-men. Let us treat their interests with justice; let ns look at their faults with compassion ; and let us remember that when we stand before the tribunal of the same God the verdict of the Divine judgment will be preceded by a dialogue concerning acts ef charity. A vote of thanks to the lecturer terminated the proceedings.