THE CHINESE AND THE TARIEF.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1815, 13 November 1888, Page 4

THE CHINESE AND THE TARIEF.

Dunedi :;, Nov. 7. Mr Don, Chinese missionary of th« Presbyterian Church, states that although the Customs duties had baen raised all round, the Chinese imagined that it had been raised only for the purjose of oppressing them, and the doubling of the duty on opium had giveu rite to an anti-opium smoking agitation, the success of which was most desirable, though doubtful. The Chinese merchants here had agreed not to import more opium, and the Chinamen had agreed that fines should be iiiflictedfor the sale of or purchase of opium, though how these penalties wero to be enforced was by no means apparent, Then they were distributing gratuitously medicine to cure men of the opium habit, and for the purchase of this medicine for free distribution £2OO had been subscribed in Dunedin. He said the placards about the matter showed t'te Chinese had powers as hard to understand as Robert Browning. In one the Chinese poet said of his fellow countrymen hero that "They had been washed by rain and combed by the winds," meaning tha f they had suffered the hardship of travel; and another said " They had wrapped themselves in the stars, and had worn the moon;" ihe prose for which was that they had travelled by night.