THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1908. CHINESE IMMIGRATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3061, 4 December 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1908. CHINESE IMMIGRATION.

It is a matter of conjecture now whether New Zealand has satisfactorily settled, at least for a considerable time hence, the vexed question of Chinese immigration. The result of the amending Act of 1907, which imposed the education test on Chinese, and which has just come into force, will be watched with interest, not to say anxiety, by those who are concerned as tu what the final proportion of Chinese population is likely to remain at in the Dominion. The Act of last year j provides as follows:—"It shall not be lawful for any Chinese to land in New Zealand until it has been proved to the satisfaction of tne Collector of Customs or other principal officer at some port in New Zealand that such Chinese is able to read a printed passage of not less that one hundred words of the English language, selected at the discretion of such collector or principal officer. Provided that any Chi-

nese who is dissatised with the decision of the Collector or principal officer shall have the right to appeal to a Magistrate, who shall administer such further test in reading the English language as he thinks fit, and the decision of the Magistrate shall be final." Probably the very first question which will present it- < self to the minds of most people is, does the qualification of being able to read a passage in English make a Chinese any more a desirable resident of New Zealand—or any other country, for that matter—than a brother celestial who could only muster 'ip the poll tax iri times now past? It is at least doubtful, and probably unlikely, that those characteristics which are considered objectionable in the Chinese character are removed by a perfunctory schooling in the English language sufficiently to class such an "educated" Chinese as more fit to be a citizen of New Zealand than those who have not been required to pass the statutory test. If it were not so, why is the poll-tax still retained at all? Either the Chinaman, educated or uneducated, is a desirable immigrant or he is not. If he is, then j why burden him with a poll-tax? If he is not, then why admit him at all? Of course, we recognise the Imperial difficulties in the way of our Legislature dealing with this delicate national question in the way the people of the Dominion would have it dealt with, and it is not criticism we are aiming at the Government's stand in the matter. What we wish to make a point of is that a step has been taken by Parliament with the object ot dealing effectively with the influx of Chinese into our country, which, while not being quite consistent, is not certain to achieve its object. It is unnecessary for us to expatiate on the virtues or defects of the Chinese character, that being a matter of individual opinion, and a matter, moreover, upon which most people's minds have long ago been made up. But it is"necessary for us to say that the regulation of Chinese immigratiou must imperatively be reduced to a matter of absolute certainty. We must know whether we are going to have a proportion of five per cent., ten per cent., or twenty per cent, of Chinese in our midst, whatever percentage the Government in its wisdom deems a fit proportion. Now under a simple education test —and even with a poll-tax added —we have no guarantee that there will be any limit to the proportion of Chinese likely to emigrate to our shores, and this is the unsatisfactory part of the present position. There are such possibilities to the "awakening of China" and the general effect of Western civilisation's advnnce into Asia that we cannot foresee from year to year what steps the Chinese or any other Asiatic race might tatce to render themselves eligible citizans for the various countries seeking, as New Zealand is now doing, to exclude them by educational tests and similar meanß. What is to prevent the Chinese themselves from setting up schools in their own country where English will be taught solely to qualify the scholars for admission to New Zealand? It is not an extravagant supposition, and seeing that wealthy Chinese have in the past paid the poll-tax for their poorer brethren and "taken it out" in hard labour in the garden or laundry after the latter's arrival, it is nut at all improbable that Huch wealthy Chinese will go a step further and educate their bonded fellow-countrymen prior to despatching them to the Dominion. New Zealand has, according to all accounts, proved an exceedingly profitable investment for wealthy Chinese and their labour minions, and it is difficult to suppose that the subtle Asiatic nature will allow an education test, superimposed on the poll-tax, to thwart them in their exploitation of a fruitful field. It strikes us very forcibly that it will only be a question of time when Parliament will have to say chat no more Chinese must land in New Zealand until either the number resident in the country has diminished or the white population has increased sufficiently to justify an increase in the Asiatic population. This means that a definite proportion of Chinese to the white population must ultimately be fixed by statute, and why such should not be the case now is what we would like to know. China could raise no tenable objection if, for. instance, New Zealand said to her, "We will allow one per cent, of your nation in proportion to the white population into our country." This would allow the Chinese a Dominion population of ten thousand to a million whites—probably an approximation of the present position. We venture the opinion that this is a much more generous proportion for the Chinese in New Zealand than is the case at present for the ! white races in China, so why should China complain? And who will deny that New Zealand is not just about as full of Chinese immigrants as she can conveniently be? A visit to our Empire City will be an instructive lesson to those who do deny such an assertion, while some of our country towns are carrying a population of over ten per cent, of Chinese! That is why it is essential that definiteness should be the chief point of our legislation iri respect of Chinese immigration.