Chinese on the Rand.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43065, 5 March 1907, Page 2

Chinese on the Rand.

~ FACTORS IN CRIME. In the latest bluebook on Transvaal administration contains some grave passages, which do not tend to show Chinese labour in its best light. Dealing with the record of crime .for the year under review, which is unhappily much longer than for the previous j(sar, the report says: — “It may ijpt unfairly be assumed that taken as k whole the large army of Chinese cqolies employed on the Witwatersrand is law-abiding, but so much fierce —and, for the most part, unfriendly criticism has been directed against the indentured criminal that a, few words explanatory of the factors lying at the root of his disposition to crime may be of interest.”

“In the case of white residents, robbery, 'not murder, has been his motive, and it was only when resistance on the part of the irate householder was offered that the latter came to. an untimely end. It should „lbe. particularly ‘noted that not a .''single case of outrage on women has ever beenproved.”

Uncontrollable Passions. “ Deliberate murder of his fellow countrj|meji,: however, under aggravated circumstances of cruelty is a charge of which he cannot be acquitted, and for this the storm of vindictive and uncontrollable passions which from time to time surges through the breast of every oriental must be held responsible. “ The great predisposing cause of all Chinese crime on the mines is and' lis ruoMitatii debts' supplemented by illicit traffic in uiJiUm.r The lack or Severity in punishments is anilA? contributing cause, and the repoij ft alls a memorandum made to the sfcjßintendent by a Chinese writer that I ftlhinese cannot be governed by mSlJJwws and advocating capital punishment for systematic burglary 1 The fast must also not be concealed that certain storekeepers along the reef make a practiceof and swindling coolies dealing with them, and that a desire to pay off old scores is often at the bottom of armed attacks on their persons or property.