The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-04 00:00:00

ME SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 4, 1869.

_
dignity of the benth nor t; ;iie 1-:-cstrge Gr rile nar
that a member of the legal profession should
come session after session into each of the
criminal courts in turn, make a disturbance,
and have to be forcibly removed, " kicking out all
round," threatening and howling. Long ago some.:
one ought to have taken charge of him. The state
of his mind was clear when he threatened the Lord
Chief Justice of the Court of Commons Pleas, and
he should have been looked after then. But ho has
since appeared at the police and other courts, armed
with two large stones, which he threatened to hurl
at the head of any person who touched him. The
idea of one of our judges being "killed while in the
execution of his duty is not a pleasant one, and
for the sake of the " immaculate eighteen " we
are glad that the danger has been removed. There
will now be the less need of the latest invented con-
trivance, suggested by the recent rows at our law
and police-courts, a trap door under the seats of all
magistrates and judges, through which they can
immediately diiappear at the slightest appearance of
danger.

ASIA7IG'S IN THE UNI7E•D STATES.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

No. 11,

American national opinion can be most quickly
guessed at, but the expression, however general, is
frequently deceptive. It is evident that the erection
of barriers will not be allowed against Chinese
migration, but, on the contrary, that the whole
country will be opened to the Mongolian inroad. It
will readily be believed that this is hateful to such
European labour as intends to be always labour, for
the hereditary hewer of wood and drawer of water
will not rejoice to see the cheapening of hewing
wood and of drawing water. Strong as are the
labouring classes in America, capital is stronger
still, at any rate when backed by the institutions as
wellas sentiment of the country, and however power-
ful has been the effort for the exclusion of the
Chinese, it may be said already to have failed. The
Memphis Convention on the Chinese labour ques-
tion was held on the 14th inst., and Chinamen then
addressed a large gathering. TYEKE3I-ORR said
that after a residence in the West Indies he had
tived for the last two years in the United States,
principally in Louisiana. There were 70,000
Chinese now in the West Indies, where much dis-
tress prevails, as the men were not well selected,
most of them being criminals, and many employed
on unfamiliar work. Pieper agents could procure
any number of agriculturists in the interior of
China ; farm hands there receive only from $lB to
$2O a year, but living is so cheap that 150 lbs. of
rice cost but $2. it was a mistake to suppose that
the women of the agricultural class had small feet;
they had to labour in the fields, and it was only in
the cities where they could enjoy that luxury. About
one in ten of the Chinese love strong drink, but
comparatively few are opium eaters, as that also is
a luxury the rich and city people only can afford. He
spoke highly of his countrymen as labourers; show-
ing, that the products of the Southern States and
of China are almost identical; he considers that
these labourers would there feel at home. KOOP.
MANSHOOP arrived while the Convention was in
session, and immediately addressed the meeting. Of
the 60,000 Chinese engaged in California as me-
chanics, and on the railroads, his house had im-
ported 30,000; they were paid on an average a
dollar a day in gold as labourers ; they could be
induced to come from San Francisco to Memphis
for $2O a month, and could be had on a five years'
contract in China for $lO to $l2 per month. The
expense, according to the Transportation Com-
mittee, of carriage from Hong Kong to San Fran-
cisco ranged from $BO to $lOO in gold, and from San
Francisco the men can be brought to Memphis over
the railwayin gangs of 50 for about $5O each person.
KOOPMANSHOP said they were not reliable, as unless
security was exacted they would take service with
others on higher wages being offered. The Conven-
tion met again on the 15th, and organised the
Mississippi Valley Emigration Company, with one
million dollars stock, in shares of $lOO, with the
privilege to double its capital, and $40,000 were
subscribed on the spot. It is evident that a strong
tide of Chinese and Japanese immigration is about
to flow into the United States, which in time can
scarcely fail to make itself felt on the nation.
However repugnant to Republican institutions a
servile class may be, in no other country in the
world would such a class be more heartily welcome
than in the United States. An American does not
choose to submit to be his own hewer of wood or
drawer of water if he can by any means escape the
drudgery; on a pinch no one will do it more readily,
but as a constancy no one is more impressed with
the conviction that he is above such work, and to
escape i t America n ingenuity has always been keenly
taxed. If this feeling is strong in the men, it is still
stronger in the women. So generally is the want of
that sort of labour felt that a distinct tendency is ob-
servable among Americans to abandon the country
and flock into the towns where they can do better
with brain-work, and in speculating and trading
among the crowd, than in labouring without suffi-
cient help on their farms. Yet it is not so much what
they gain in the city as what they avoid by leaving
the country which impels them. The fathers feel it ;
but if they do not act on it, the children feel it still
more strongly, and do act on it, for they cannot en-
dure a life of hard manual labour, ending only in
securing the bare means of living. To have.the
farm cultivated, the household drudgery performed
by docile, contented, industrious, and cheap Chinese
labour would be an unspeakable relief to so intelli-
gent a class, condemned to a lengthened, monoton-
ous, and to them most distasteful toil. In the
cities the comfort experienced from a large Chinese
immigration would be felt only in a lesser degree,
and no theories, no probabilities as to the social
effect, no difficulties as regards the suffrage, will be
permittad to stand in the way. But let us imagine
the native American gratified by the import of
millions of Chinamen ; let us imagine the almond-
eyed Celestial on every farm, in every house, what
would be the effect ? Puttiug aside the Chinaman
as a voter, and on his use of such a privilege few can
speculate who do not know the people intimately,
it is easy to see in the future an America wholly
changed from the early days of the Republic. A
servile class inevitably creates an aristocratic class ;
while an aristocratic class is as great an abomina-
tion in the eye of a truly Republican American as a
servile class. Socially, it is no exaggeration to say
that a large importation of Chinese labour would in a
few years change the country. Another of its effects
would be to add to the disparity between rich ani
poor, making the rich richer, and giving to capital
the command over labour. The influence on Europe
would be instantly felt, America becoming the land
for enterprising young men with capital, but not
for the working man. The emigration now going
on would be checked in quantity as well as changed
in quality, for Europe would have no chance in com-
peting with China as a labour-bearing field, and in
proportion as•the Asiatic stream flowed in would be
the decrease of that from Europe. This alone would
have an extraordinary effeet,making North America
the amalgamation ground for the most energetic
of the European and the two sleepy Asiatic races so
long" excluded from the rest of the world, the
Chinese and Japanese. But are the Chinese the
peaceful, docile, harmless creatures so generally
represented in America? In England's colony of
Hong Kong frequent murders are perpetrated in
the vicinity of the town, it is notoriously unsafe to
enter a boat after nightfall, the adjoining bays and
harbours swarm with pirates, and Chinese junks
have to sail in fleets and make preparations be-
fore starting for defence. The most numerous as
well as atrocious risings at sea have been among
the Chinese coolies, who have destroyed very many
ships in their efforts to capture them. The most
sanguinary rebellion of aodern times has had China
for its stage, and none can inspect their pictorial
representations, as well as the life-like clay models
in which they excel, wilout being satisfied that
they are a cruel race. indeed their markets fur-
nish sufficient evidence of this fact, their system
being carried out with a total disregard for the
sufferings of the animal. That they are a con-
temptible enemy, with little knowledge of offensive
weapons, we grant, but this renders . them inoffen-
sive, not from disposition, Init from inability.
Though they have as immigrants, both in Australa
and California, proved harmless and docile, yet this
has not been so in Penang, Borneo, and Singapore.
Another subject connecttd with this immigration
attracts much attention—the bellot in Chinese
hands. The XVth Amendment, now almost vir-
tually a part of the Constitution, insists upon nn.
partial suffrage, and that induces people to con-
sider whether a Chinamae, on becoming a citizen,
who could neither speak nor read- English, and
who knew nothing whattver of the Constitution,
ought to be allowed to yob. The thousands of the
most ignorant latest arrivals from Europe, who
claim this for themselves as the inalienable right of
man, would see it in a different light when claimed
by a Chinaman. Hence tie Celestial immigration
may lead to the adoption ef an impartial educa-
tional ttst, and a gradual retction take l lace against
universal suffrage, for it isa manifest absurdity to
regard Chinese unable to peak English or to un-
derstand the privilege, as nen qualified to vote; yet
what excludes them should exclude others as well.
The subject is of deep interea. to Americans, as it can
scarcely fail to exercise au important influence on
the country. One thing, however, is evident, that

the price of labour will not fall without a bud
fight. The Trades Unions all over the States
have been addressed through circulars issued from
Washington, directing their attention to the influx
of Chinese, and asking their advice, while meet-
ings have been called throughout the country, and
representatives from California are engaged in agi-
tating the question in many Eastern cities.

LICENSE TO 1?013.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

If the majority of those who framed the Limited
Liability Act of 1862 had accurately estimated the
tone of commercial morality in England, they
would certainly have refrained from passing a law
which can be summed up in the three words,
License to Rob. It is true that the Houseof Com-
mons is in a degree composed of the robbers,
and that the direct tendency of the Act was to
increase the class, for the most successful of the
bubble-floaters in all their brilliant hues, float as a
rule into Parliament. "M.P." after a man's name
when the Act came into operation could constitute
to him an income. Although not the initials of the
words, the public accepted the letters as standing
for Universal Knowledge, leaving out the " I's,"
which meant industry, intelligence, integrity, in-
corruptibility. It mattered not, then, how many
charges were undertaken by such heaven-sent ge-
niuses as M.P.'s. No one asked what they knew of
the affairs they undertook to conduct; no one asked
what time was at their disposal ; the company was
a joint-stock limited liability, the proposed director
an M.P., and how would the curious shareholder
who made such inquiries have been met by the
S,cretary or shareholders ? Yet it was reason-
able to ask if the range of one man's knowledge
qualified him properly to conduct the affairs of a
great railway, a steamship company, a mine in
Mexico, anotherin Australia, a tea estate in Assam,
a linen manufactory in Ireland, a brewery in Eng-
land, and a ship-building company on the Clyde.
The law was a profitable law for such members of
Parliament as considered themselves qualified for
these varied pursuits, and did not object to under-
take them, besides attending to their own business,
if they had any, their private affairs, which they
must have, as well as their duties in the llouse.
Whatever may have been the action of the law on the
outside public, and whatever its effect on the cha-
racter of these Parliamentary magnates, it seems as
a rule to haveleft the latter untouched in pocket, and
we know that it was a source while it lasted, of fruitful
gain to the " guinea-pigs," as those who pretend to
conduct such numerous concerns are called. After
the crash of 1866 and the subsequent revelations
which fully prove the assertion that the Joint-
Stock Limited Liability Act of 1862 was a license
to rob, of which many in good positions availed
themselves, it might be expected that the atten-
tion of Parliament would again be directed to a
measure which had had so pernicious an effect.
More than three years have passed since the com-
mercial name of England was trailed in the mud ;
a by-word and reproach, a thing to jeer at through-
out the world, yet no action has been taken on the
subject. A man who libels the privileged classe.?„
like Mr. GRENVILLE-MURRAY, is quickly set upon
and extinguished ; but those who systematically
plunder the people, who affix a stigma on the
British national character, who ruin families by
the thousand and dissipate scores of millions, who
in destroying confidence injure for many years
the trade of the country—can do so with impu-
nity. The "smashed" as a rule are small peaple ;
the earnings of the retired shopkeeper, the savings
of the military officer, the modest competence of the
widow, may be appropriated and their owners crushed
in shoals; they may starve unnoticed, die, or commit
suicide; they disappear, when other victims grow up
from the path of our " guinea-pig" legislators, who
are again ready for action, but surely these men and
their doings are more worthy of the national atten-
tion than our hereditary legislators, whom it has lately
been so much the fashion to write down. Yet this
House of Commons, which is so busy that it cannot
attend to small matters like this Act, finds time to
pass a law for the suppression of Mr. SULLIVAN, the
Mayor of Cork. When will Parliament take up this
subject, and trace out the ruinous working of the law
passed in 1862? If to it is to be attributed the
Fraud Crisis of 1866, that measure did more to
dissipate wealth, to bring ruin, misery, insanity,
and death into families than the Crimean War, or
any contest in which Great Britain has been engaged
since Waterloo, not excepting the expeditions into
Affghanistan. Let any with a large circle of acquaint-
ances calculate the persons they know, who were
hurried into their graves from the effects of their
severe losses, just as much as were men who eventu-
ally died from wounds receives in action, and they
may estimate, when they multiply the number by
those all over the kingdom what its effect was even
in depriving of life. But disgraceful as were the acts
perpetrated, disgraceful as is the impunity with which
they were committed, and destructive on all sides as
have been their effects, it does not appear to be of suf-
ficient importance to engage the attention of Eng-
land's Statesmen, who are convulsing the country on
an Irish Church Bill. The very essence of Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S Administration is money, the integrity of
the Empire even being jeopardised for economy,
yet, the Irish Question only involves a sum exceed.
ing by a very few times that dragged from the
pockets of the swindled shareholders in the matter
of OVEREND-G URNEY alone. Parliament passed
a law which has been proved to be a mere
license to rob. Among the many who availed
themselves of it to rob were members of Parlia-
ment, for, although it may appear harsh to say so,
we cannot regard same of the proceedings of mem-
bers in any other light. Hence it is the more in-
cumbent ou the House of Commons fully to show
up the working of this Act in debate, and to apply
such a remedy as will, at least, make it dangerous,
for any "guinea-pig" or director to put his name
to documents he does not understand, and which,
in so many notorious cases, have proved to be
deceptions, traps, and frauds. It is amusing to
trace the steps of the successful bubble-floater
into Parliament ; indeed had the bubble mania not
been interrupted by the Fraud Panic, the Treasury
Benches, with those on the other side, would have
become the pleasant seats of the unscrupulous. The
letters "M. P." were worth money in a guinea-pig
line of business. Acts such as that which limited
liability Were the very basis of their trade, so " the
House" at the West-end of the town became one
scene of. their operations, while the llouse," as
brokers and jobbers call the Stock Exchange in the
City, became the scene of their operations at the
other end. We grant that the enlarged Reformed
constituencies rejected many of these people, and
that souse, brazen-faced as they are, had not the
audacity to propose their return to the scene o

their glory, the Commons being thus far purified.
But the character of the House could not be other than
injuriously affected if another crisis arose out of such
fraudulent transactions as those to which this Act
of Parliament opened the way, if the perpetrators of
the frauds proved to be, in numerous cases, mem-
bers of the House. And what is to prevent this ?
as all now required is the new crop of fools, the
entire machinery for working them being in perfect
order, while the results of the last battue may, on
the whole, be considered by the guinea-pigs to be
highly encouraging. Stringent measures are re-
quired to fix on directors who are paid for taking
charge of the money of others the strictest respon-
sibility—in fortune, for the success of what they re-
commend to others ; in person, to answer for fraud, as
well as a public prosecutor, whose business it should
be to bring the law to bear. We would not then be
scandalised by the sight of men connected with
transactions which have spread misery over the
land, living in opulence, though their victims have
to be sought ont in lunatic asylums, poor-houses,.
or in paupers' graves. Until some such law is
passel there will be nothing to prevent a repetition
of the Fraud Crisis, except the dread a burned
child has of the fire ; but it should be borne in mind
that those are again congregating, untaught by ex-
perience, who have faith in members of Parliament
and other persons of position in particular, and in
human nature in general, and they become the suf-
ferers, while the wary old stager who foresees what
is about to happen, prepares himself for the scram-
ble, and begins to regard such periodical " slaugh-
ters of the innocents" as a natural law, whereby he