Chinese Labor in South Africa

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 36, 8 September 1904, Page 29

Chinese Labor in South Africa

The following strong condemnation of the introduction of Chinese into South Africa is taken from the 1 British Weekly,' an English Nonconformist organ :— Thr ghastly business of introducing Chinese serfs into South Africa grows more hideous with every fresh revelation of the tacts r I he whole country roads with rising indignation the scraps and fia^monts of information that are allowed to filter through. More than a thousand of ' animated implements ' have been brought to Durban. No one is allowed to approach the vessel. The landing stage is guarded by a body of Zulu police. On one occasion the poor creatures were packed into a train, locked up, and run through stlaight to Johannesburg under military guard. It is stated by one of their overseers rhat they are ignorant of the severe restrictions that will be laid upon them, of the small purchasing power of money in South Africa, attid they will soo© fmd out that their minimum, wage is to be not 2s 'a day, as Mr. Lyttelton promised, but Is a day. During the thirty days' voyage of the ship there were three deaths on boaid from beri-beri, and forty other cases of that peculiarly loathsome disease— a "form of sleeping sickness.

The overseers are to be Chinamen, and have already been appointed. The serfs are being photographed for future identification ; tlheir linger impressions are taken as |i{ they were criminals. As long as the question Vvas disioussod in Parliament wo were told that South Africa was bankrupt, and would be ruined if Chinese scifs could not be fourtd. Now Lord Milner laughs at the ' crocodile tears that have been shed over financial troubles which are nothing out of the common,' and tells us that the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony aie botih paying, and that the latter shows a surplus. It is i'ot wonderful' that tihe wrath of honest Conservatives is kindled agairr.st such tricks. The ' Standard ' says that the Ordinance was exposed to much legitimate criticism in its original form, and that the impression provails that the amendments made have not been earned into effect in the spirit in which they were sanctioned. Our contemporary goes on : ' The mode in which the first batch of Chinese have been brought into the colony has revived a good deal of the opposition which the proposal piro\oked at its in? option There is something extremely repellent to English notions in this. in> migiation of a draft of laborers under precautions smd restrictions which would seem better suited to convicts than to free working men The smuggling; in of tihe i ol ios under guard, their virtual imprisonment en route, and the obvious denial to them of their personal liberty n.av be necessary , but all these things have an ugly look '

We ha\c thought all alona that the whole transaction was the most nefarious which has been undertaken e\ en by this Government, and it is to the lasting siiame and peimanent weakening of certain sections of the ( hristian C hurch that they Lave in any measure condoned it But the moral sense of the country, the moral sen^e of those who stand outside all churches is far s'ouncler than that of many ecclesiastics The people ha\o not lo ( t their love of liberty or tJicir care for righteousness, and because they have not lost them all this wickedness must come to naught.