KEEP NEW ZEALAND WHITE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8373, 7 March 1907, Page 4

KEEP NEW ZEALAND WHITE.

(To the Editor). < Sir,—lt is a good many years since a meeting similar to that held at Masterton on Monday night last was called in Christchurch. Both meetings were for the purpose of forming an Anti-Chinese League; but Christ- ■ church had this advantage: the Chinese had not obtained a footing in the city. From that day to this, no Chinese fruiterer has been able to exist in the Cathedral City. What was possible to Christchurch is pos- , sible to every town and city in the colony. The one thing needful is a healthy public opinion. If it be once recognised that when a man ior woman, boy or girl, of European nationality deals with a Chinese storekeeper, he or she identifies hiniself or herself with the methods of the Chinese, their mode of life, their innate viciousness of conduct, and consequent degradation of the mean whites who become the associates of the Chinese, there will be a considerable diminution of trade in Chinese shops. At the present time one is made ashamed when one sees Europeans passing in and out of the business places of the Chinese. More especially is it displeasing to note so many New Zealanders trafficking with the yellow man. Every New Zealander ought to realise the danger of encouraging the Chinese from the commercial as well as the national standpoint. If one, has regard to the moral standpoint, l then one would fain hope that our New Zealanders would shun the Chinese as they would a pestilence. I cannot enter into particulars here; nor is there any necessity for my so doing. Our people ought to know that there is no ' degradation— in the vilest of European slums—like the degradation which communion with the Asiatic involves. Sir George Grey, over twenty-five years ago, pleaded with us to'"keep our races pure," and to-day those who realise what contamination means, and what may result from that contamination of individuals or of States, need to speak out and plainly to our men and women. Nothing so drastic as the £I,OOO poll-tax suggested at the Masterton meeting is needed to keep the Asiatic out. All that is necessary (and this gets over the treaty difficulty) is an educational test. Such a test can be made absolutely exclusive in its working against Asiatics. I cannot support the deportation idea, unless the colony is prepared to pay compensation. But the trading of the Chinese and other Asiatics ought to be, and must be, controlled. Let us see to it that no more Chinese come in and that none of those who depart from shall ever re-enter the colony; but, above all, let us have an Anti-Asiatic League in every town and village, and we shall quickly and peacably solve the problem.—l am, etc., " J. T. M. HORNSBY. Carterton, March 5, 1907.