The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28. CHINAMEN-£2100 EACH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8070, 28 March 1906, Page 2

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28. CHINAMEN-£2IOO EACH.

A poll-tax of £W) is levied on every Chinaman who comes into New Zealand, that, is if the wily heathen is not able to slip through without being seen. Tho poll-tax is levied because we don't want the Mongol, and when it was first imposed it was going to be the means of keeping him out. It lias bad the opposite effect, because the slave-owners in China naturally concluded that if it were worth £ 100 to let a common coolie into the " foreign devils' " colony, there was something worth having in the said colony. The Government is in the interesting position of taking blood-money from the rich pig-tailed traders in Hong Kong, Singapore, and other places in the Land of the Sou of Heaven, for the meek and lowly John, for the most part, is the very ill-paid peon of mandarins of the peacock feather or lords of .the crosseyed dog.

* * * * The Chinaman, for the most part, ( does not greatly interfere with the , white man, furthev than to supply , him with cabbages, a clean collar, andj occasionally, a chest of drawers, i He lias not asked yet to be represented in Parliament, or for seats in the Legislative Council. All he asks is for time and opportunity to pay back the amount of his poll-tax to the mandarin, and to draw some of the money that is left over when the mandarin has had his fifty per cent. The Government does not worry much about John, mainly, wo suppose, because John is a source of revenue. The Government stops a European immigrant who cannot pass an examination in English, and sends hiin home again. The Government does not trouble a Chinaman. He may not know a word of" English, he may be a criminal, and he always is morally a leper. He does not cry aloud his immorality, but lie and his for ten thousand years has believed it no sin to bo foul and loathsome, according to our judgment of conduct, and he can't break away when he gets here. He is an expert in everything he attempts, and he attempted moral evil from the dim ages, before our race was out of s vadling-clothes. * ♦ * * In some New Zealand towns—notab'y in Wellington—he has practically ousted the white man from the fruit and vegetable trade. And he is doing his best in the same direction in New Plymouth. New Zealand, or any other British country, is no place for Chinese. If they are admitted, let them live, We take their money as a sort of license to them to make a living, and growl because they take advantage of the offer. We have nothing incommon with the Chinese, either in religion, aspiration, morals, or any other thing. Contact with the Chinese does not Christianise the Chinese. It hentheuises the contact. The Chinaman does not look upon his gambling den, his opium-smoking and his general lep- [ rous morality as any oll'ence against the Chinese code of good manners and morals, and, this being so, he should not be allowed to come to a country where his offences are re garded in a different light.

# * # a His chief aims, with the exception of opium-snicking - for which he has to thank John Bull-are so ingrained intohis nature that all the pleading in the world won't eradicate them. Therefore eradicate him. Tell him ho is not wanted. Tell him not to leave home. Tell him he cannot hind here, even though he pays five thousand pounds for the privilege. Thouwmls of white youths in the chisf cities of Australia and New Zealand habitually spend a great portion of their leisure in Chinese gamblingdens. The police make a raid on tin se dens perhaps once a year. Absolut .iy no measures are taken for the eradication of the evil. The Cliinuiian who plays fantan or pakapu is no more guilty of evil than the white mail who plays cribbage, but the youth who plays fantan with the Chines? is in danger of learning n:a:iy things that would (it him to weir a pigtail.

* # # * If we believo that wo are on a higher plane than the coolies who run these places, it is a disgrace to this country that a single Chinaman should be allowed here to bring white youth down to the Chinese level. The rumour that went around not long since that the Japs wore turning a kindly eye towards this country, brought a strong protest from the Premier. Yet the Premier is doing nothing to keep the Jap's cousin out. The Jap is the least desirable of the two, because he is aggressive, dishonest, and just as shady morally as the Chinese, but it is almost a case of " six of uue. and half-a-dozen of the other." No doubt the Government would very unwillingly part with the chance to make revenue, but, as the matter stands, they are willingly making Chinamen of white women and men. The Asiatic, of whatever kind, is dear at ±'loo. Ho is dear at any pif e fi-jin a colonial standpoint, a'id he hates everything belonging to 1 the " foreign devil" except his money.