The Daily News. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10. THE DOCILE LASCAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 236, 10 February 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10. THE DOCILE LASCAR.

It is noticed that juvenile members of the Navy League in New Zealand are to be stirred to patriotism by presents of the latest Navy League map. We are having our presentation 'Dreadnought built. The Premier luis been talking about the bonds of brotherhood, Imperialism, and so on. There is great argument about compulsory service and conscription at Home. Australia has already instituted a drastic system of universal training; New Zealand has a diluted imitation of it, and the flag waves. In the interests of Imperialism, or whatever the big shipping companies call it, these rich corporations waved the Union Jack and asked why they shouldn't employ our "fellow citizens," the Lascars, on their boats. How dare Australia and New Zealand protest against these docile folk! Why shouldn't drunken white firemen, who sometimes deserted, be replaced by sober, rice-fed gentlemen who never protested at anything and were always docile? And so colonial protests having been waved aside, the pro-Lascars won. The shipping companies, whose boats will be subsidised by the War Office in time of national stress, have never explained what they are going to do about these "fellow citizens" when that time comes. When the representatives of great shipping companies compared the deserting and drunken Cockney fireman to the noble Lascar who never deserted, we took the opportunity of suggesting that neither the Lascar nor the Chinese coolie was an angel of light, that either is a danger now and will be a graver danger in the future, and that active recruiting of colored crews would eventually make it unnecessary for white men to work British mercantile boats. So one may be pardoned for expressing satisfaction that even these docile, sober, rice-eating fellow citizens are showing in an exaggerated form the sins that make the white ship-owner hate the white fireman. It was commonly supposed that the Lascar represented the summit of dog-like obedience and devotion. We are very glad that the Aparima Lascars at Melbourne showed the authorities that they could be insubordinate, for there seems a prospect that should the Lascars continue to be insubordinate the complexion of the stokeholds will again change. The white fireman was disliked because he was not doglike enough, and occasionally protested if there were anything to protest about. The Lascars were loved because they would not protest. But, unfortunately for the faith that was in the shipping .companies, and fortunately for the contention of the Imperialists, the meek Lascars became insubordinate, and had to be restrained. The strain of proving that they were superior -clay to the white man broke their resolves to be nice, quiet gentlemen. But although there may have been a reasonable possibility of Lascars, or even Chinese, disobeying orders, it was never contemplated by the pro-alien shipping companies that these exemplary persons would desert just like those evil persons, the whites. On the whole, the desertion of twenty-eight Lascars at Melbourne is not an unmixed evil, but their immediate capture is a little unfortunate. As we have before said, the shipping companies employ colored crews because they are cheap, because thev can he cheaply fed, and not because they are "fellow citizens." The shipping companies will get tired of the Lascars when they have to pay heavily for their disloyalty to the. white man. The fact that the captain of a ship—meaning the shipping companyis finable to the extent of £IOO for every deserting Lascar is the best evidence that the Lascar is looked upon as a bond slave with a price on his head. This will give Lascars the finest possible excuse for becoming habitual deserters. Habitual deserters will be costlv to shipping companies who are not fined one hundred pounds for every white stokehold slave who escapes. Even the bestregulated and most docile Lascar may have a grievance. It is as reasonable that he should have a grievance on the high seas as at Williamstown. He is , just as capable of "playing up" on_ the deep blue ocean as he is at Newport, and, heing an alien, he is not in the least concerned at the dangers white passengers may be in in times of storm, stress or shipwreck. The chances are the insurrection of the Aparima Lascars will have its effect on their brothers who are kindly shovelling coal for other British ships. There is a further chance should other crews become insubordinate and escape that the police may not be successful in gathering them in and getting them carefully returned to the slaveowners. Such occurrences would affect the ship-owners' pockets, and it is apparent that they keep their loyalty in their pockets. There is no need to dislike the Lascar for having a little "British independence" about him, or to hate him for his dusky skin, or to detest him because he accepts slavery for a minute remuneration. The alien is guiltless in the matter. But shipping companies which carefully exaggerate every story that can possibly injure the white stoker in order to show reason for using black slaves are injuring the prestige of the mercantile marine, damaging their own countrymen, are parties to coercion and enemies of the Empire. One point for the public is that the whole stokehold service of ships owned by these enemies of the white man is necessarily colored because it is an impossible position for white men to work at the furnaces alongside black men. If it is right for anv one steamer to be worked by aliens, it is right that every steamer in the mercantile marine should be so manned. At the root of the whole matter is lust of gold, for it is already proved that the alleged devotion and docility of' the alien does not exist. There are signs

that in the near future shipping com- j panics will fall back on the white fireman. If the white fireman is treated as ( . well as he is entitled to be treated from I the nature of his work-in which he is ■

twice as effective as a Lascar—lie will possibly not desert, and certainly not by the score as in the case of the Aparima Lascars,