CHINESE CONSUL CHALLENGED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 752, 27 August 1929, Page 1

CHINESE CONSUL CHALLENGED

Asiatics and Maoris

DR. STALEY SUPPORTED

THE controversy which was recently ventilated between the Chinese Consul for New Zealand, Mr. Ou Tsin Shuing, and Dr. Mildred Staley on account of the alleged association between Chinese men and Maori girls has been carried a stage further by Mr. George Graham who, in a letter to THE SUN, challenges the Consul upon specific points. The writer also advances the viewpoint of the Maori. His letter is printed below.

The Editor,.. The Sun, Auckland. Dear Sir, — CHINESE AND MAORIS The Consul for China takes the offensive on behalf of his countrymen, and of Asiatics generally, in this controversy. Despite his carefullyprepared polemics, his logic is more studied than of intrinsic worth. Under the several headings of his fulmination, Mr. Ou Tsin Suing astutely sidesteps the real issue—the undeniable existence of grave and increasingly sordid conditions resulting from the association of Asiatics with both white and Maori womanhood, undoubtedly leading to all the ills claimed by Dr. Staley under the headings of moral, spiritual and physical. The figures which the Consul questions as to an estimated percentage of Asiatic-Maori half-castes, were reported in the public papers, and also quoted by a Government official. Diverting from the issue at stake, Mr. Ou Tsin Shuing, in reply to the allegations that these associations are “dangerous morally,” “spiritually” and “physically,” gives us a dissertation on the “Chinese code of ethics,” which he claims are “on a far higher plane than the Western (i.e., our) code of ethics.” He also says that “the Chinese have a much greater respect for women than is usually accorded to men of the West.” His conception of the relative value of European and Asiatic standards in ethics is, of course, that from his Chinese viewpoint, and seen through Chinese spectacles. But the correctness thereof will be tardily admitted by the people of this country, and certainly not so as judged by the local results of Chinese immigration in our midst. In detailing the “code of ethics,” the Consul enumerates, inter alia, the (bhinese duty to "show his qualities" as a son “to all men”—that “hs should be circumspect,” etc. He claims that “in China there is no such thing as a parent applying for a maintenance order.” Now, this resume of the Chinese “code of ethics” is all beside the question—but surely his Asiatic brethren

have left those moral guides ami qualities behind them in the Flowery land. For at least hereabouts (and it is alleged of other parts) this “code of ethics” is falsified. For quite out of accord with the code. here, his countrymen are assuredly showing their quality by a complete loss of “circumspection,” resulting in much social misery. The circumstance of “a parent applying for a maintenance order” against Asiatic fathers is not at all an uncommon incident, as our Police Courts record. Both Maori and European mothers of Asiatic children are numerous in our midst, but few of them have the publicity of court procedure in their humiliation. These and other sordid facts can be well verified by the Consul if he will but come to Auckland. Let him here inquire in the too numerous homes. European and Maori, wherein this Asiatic blight has entered. Police, maternity homes and other official records w r ill all serve to aid and amplify his conclusions. The results thereof are therefore correctly defined by Dr. Staley as dangerous “morally, spiritually and physically.” But, of course, the Chinese “national code of ethics” may have other definitions for such things, wherein it is apparent that it is to his own countrymen that the Consul must appeal that their good name be not “besmirched.'' Then again it little matters if ..he Chinese are or are not “riddled with disease,” nor if the five, or all, or none of the treaty ports are open or closed to the British. The sad conditions for which the Chinese are responsible here are real and increasingly grave. That “the friendship between Great Britain and China is increasingly cordial” is also irrelevant. But if the Consul desires to do his part by. adding to that friendship and ensuring of its permanence—let him uso his we.ight.v official influence with his countrymen hereabouts. Thus he can aid much to clean up the local Asiatic augean stable. No appeal so far made to local Chinese organisations has had any sympathetic response in these matters. GEO. GRAHAM.