THE ASIATIC QUESTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8390, 2 April 1907, Page 7

THE ASIATIC QUESTION.

(To the Editor). 'Sir,—Still another weary groan on the alien question over the usual anonymous signature. Why is it not possible to find a Chow lover who is man enough to/give publicity ' to his name and have the courage of , his opinions? Your new correspon dent "Masterton" ought to be with Bland Holt. He is beautifully dramatic and so touching that I fear his pathetic and flowing language has emanated from the illustrious pages of a young -ladies' novelette. For instance, "as the daughter of the Duke sweeps up the costly staircase glorious in her splendour, and bedecked with glittering gems." Oh, he is beautiful! Such pathos and feeling would touch a heart of Stone. Well, to get to the business on hand, your correspondent complains of anti-Chows talcing copy from the Sydney Bulletin, the recognised organ in Australia. Well, I will give him a quote now from that paper, and I am proud to quote it as my authority. Perhaps it will enlighten him about his leprous friends. This cutting is from the Bulletin of March 14th, 1907, page 6:— "A LETTER PROM HELL.

"This is a communication from that Chow-infested Gehenna upon earth, the Northern Territory:—lmmediate action must be taken in the Northern Territory over the native question.: Six: months ago Horseshoe Creek and Mount * Todd tinfield was a quiet, inoffensive little place, .with a population of 40 Europeans, 50 Chinese and a score or so of blacks. To-day it la converted into a. perfect' inferno, reeking with depravity, disease and filth. It has now a population of SOO Chows and 30 Europeans. The aboriginies in swarms have followed t this motley crowd. Hundreds of niggers, male and female, prowl all over the place and squat around the Mongolian grass hovels. Young children are brought from the bush and openly sold to the heathens for food and tobacco. . . . The police tell me they have no power to take action. Drink and opium are supplied • to 1 aboriginal girls, 12 and 13 years of age. As far as I know every store , that is bigger than a boot trunk sells (liquor; there are two opium dens and three gambling hells. Also, there are no police regularly stationed in the place. A Royal Commission should be appointed to investigate the horrible state of affairs existing in the Northern Territory. You may know the Chow as he is in the South, where he wears a faint disguise of decency lest his white neighbours should turn and rend him. Here, he has no such restraint, and the Beast of Revelation was a harmless ornament by comparison. When I read, of such people as Preacher YVorrall, of Victoria, declaring Australia accursed because it won't freely admit this tainted race, in common with other Asiatics, and I hear that Worrall is still alive and flourishing, I marvel at the inscrutable delays of Providence." Regretting encroaching on- your valuable space to further reply to such anonymous correspondents.—l am, etc.,'' TOM DWYER. Masterton, March 30th, 1907.