THE FRENCH AND THE CHINESE QUESTION.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 4 August 1880, Page 2

THE FRENCH AND THE CHINESE QUESTION.

At a reqent meeting of the Sociiftd e'Uconomie Politique, Paris, the Chinese question formed the principal topic disi cussed. Simonin recited the aspects of the question as. he saw them on the Pacific Coast,, but he had noticed elsewhere among the working population the same , aversion to invasion of cheaper labor as n» : California. The Italians are bitterly opt posed to the irruption of French workmen in Italy, while the natives or Marseilles are equally antagonistic to the swarms of Italians in that city. Lavelle, who had travelled extensively in Asia, gave it as his decided opinion that the. Chinese will one day be lords of Asia. Paul Leroy Beaulm believed that California had verygoodreasonato dread the political issue of a jargre immigration of a strange and antipathetic

economic aspects of the question were even more vast and far reachr ° believed that the day was not £? distant when the Chinese would also Iwear in Earope, and influence the wages the entire working population. The nnestion is rendered still more complex w the fact that the tendency is to have equalisation of wages throughout the rid. De Lunier also believed in a fntore" invasion of Europe by the Chinese slow pacific invasion, with great economic and ethnographical results. An •ttwnpt. he thought, will be made to stop the invasion, but it will be in vain. The prosperity of Europe has weakened it, Ldwfll make it an easy prey to these Mafic invaders. M. Luriosin had no sympathy with those who preach that the oeopte of the country must expose themselves themselves to starvation to make room for intruders. European workmen are now only earning enough to buy bread, and the workmen of California and Australia were engaged in a case of legitimate defence by trying to repel the Chinese- Several other speakers took Hart in the discussion, mo3t of them warmly espousing the cause of the Chinese.