THE TRAIL OF THE CHINAMAN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5110, 23 August 1895, Page 2

THE TRAIL OF THE CHINAMAN.

STRONG COMMENTS. Melbourne, August 22, The Age in urging the necessity of legislation in connection with the Chinese cabinet • making v declares that at present there are nt»' _ 50 European cabinet-makers at in Melbouhic, while there are fully* 500 Chinese busily engaged night . and day, and in many cases on Sundays, For what little work the white mim can secure, lie is shamefully paid and can hardly earn'a subsistence, It says tlmt fully 80 per cent, of tlio furniture sold in the city, comes from the Chinese dons, and European middlemen give the fullest encouragement to the trade, as by buying the cheap Chinese furniture and selling- it as European, they derive fat profits.

The iye states that the" trail of the Chinamen" is over nenrly every furnished house in Melbourne. The upholsterers renovating Government House, for the reception of Lord Brassey, discovered that not a few of the articles supplied by the Europeans, unquestionably, bear the stamp of cheap Chinese manufacture. The article goes on to say that whenever any European manufactured article finds favour, the middleman sends to the Chilian* who produce a cheap imitatn*. Some'of the Chinese work for food alone, and the others labour for fifteen hours per day for a few shillings per week.