The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1869-08-09
Mine Years Among "The CeIestials.'' -

laborerS IN this country to the extent OF
supplanting the negro in his old fields of
labor, although originated but few months
since, has already acquired such breadth
and seriousness as to produce the most pro-
found concern in the minds Of oil who
thoughtfully consider the future of the
South. That should share such concern
is not remarkable or in any way e1cep-
tional, and it alone would furnish no occa-
sion for communication to the press. But
it has been my fortune to have lived nine
years in China to have had some singular
and extended opportunities Of observation IN
commercial intercourse with her people;
and what l have thus learned of the cha
racter and habits of the people whom it is
proposed to make SO large an element in our
Industrial and even civil organization l
feel under some sort of obligation to COM
munioate to the public, and offer to the seri-
GUS reflection of those who, like myself,
have all the interests and hopes of their
lives invested or employed in the South.
In the first place l do not deny that the
Chinese, in many respects, are useful and
patient laborers-they are industrious, even
painfully SO. Their labor, at least achen
employed IN their oun country, is the cheap
est in the world-the average wages being
two to three dollars n month, the laborer
finding his own provisions and clothes, or
say less than ten cents a day. Their
wants are few and simple, their diet being
vegetable principally rice), and their
scanty dress, which may be completely emu
merated as bamboo hat, flowing cotton shirt
and trowsers, paper or wooden shoes, serv-
ing them in all circumstances. They are,
moreover, docilc as laborers, not little in
genous, and managed by very moderate
authority.
This is about the sum of the recommen-
dation Of the Chinaman as n laborer. But
this affords only very imperfect and mar
row view of the question, and our people
seem to have, merely computing the cost
and outward convenience of q certain kind
of labor, entirely lost sight Of all that vice,
| filth, and unnatural habits of the Asiatic
! population which such an importation Of
| laborcrs would necessarily bring into and
perhaps confirm in our midst. The Chinese
| arc the flthicst OF the Asiatic races. The
prostitution of their women is the common,
| amo It universal, condition of the lowest
/ classes. In addition to these hldcous and
worse than brutal practices, they are uni
| yc1sally gamblers. Ii is curious clrcum-
stance that young and old habitually gam
/ bic for their food and for every article they
/ buy at the stalls in the bazaar-instead OF
paying the price down, throwing dice or
usinm some other chance to determine
whether they shall pay double or nothing.
The almost invariable experience is that
! the coolies gamble away their wages, and
arc thus fcttcrcd by their improyidcncc and
| vices in whatever land they have been car
ricd as aborcrs or apprentices. When We
consider the results OF such people with
their poisonous vices being fastened upon
us perhaps in hundreds of thousands, pos
gibly millions, we are also to reflect that II
is the very scum of this population, of the
very lowest and most dcbased Of the coolie
class, that emigrants are persuaded, and
that wc must expect to recruit the ranks OF
! southern labor. What effect such popu-
lation permanently fixed in the South, and
possibly ascending in the future to polltl-
cal influence, would have on our ciyiliza-
ton, our morals, our atmosphere, is que5-
ton, to my mind more serious and larger
than that of any mere cheapness or conyc'
nience Of labor.
do not disguise that I should be sorry tt
| see the scum Of q vicious Asiatic population
supplanting the comparatively clean anc
healthful negro. | own to an affection toI
the black man, and so far from sharpening
any resentment against him at this time,
think we should await the results of those
recent influences which are manlfestly
bringing him around to reconciliation and
better understanding with the white man
The fact is, cannot see that we want any
foreign additions to the labor Of the South
We have the same labor that we have al
waye had; and as it is well known that the
natural multiplication of the negro exceeds
that of the white man, the supply mus
continue to be enlarged in proportion to th'
demand. What is needed is to reOrganlz'
and discipline this labor rather than to in
crease it by dangerous methods OF paupe1
immigration and besides this the grea
want of the South may be described as cap
ital, not labor-the first to employ and dlrec
the other, and thus bring both development
and peace to the South.
AS to the man Koopmanschap, the self
constituted agent of Chinese emigration
who has been recently making such impor
tant displays of himself, have known hin
ever ariape .s,l his .emharkation in the Chimes
trade; and although unwilling to make liti@2's'
putations on any one, must say that he Is
a man manifcstly incapable of anything but
q mercenary motive in the enterprise he
proposes. He is anxious to make the i'm
mense profits that must accrue IN selling
laborers to the South for eight dollars q
month, who notoriously work for one-fourth
of this amount of wages in their own coun-
try. The Pacific Railroad Company-that
monster northern corporation-the embodl-
ment of its avsrice and money-power-ls
anxious, too, to reap its revenue of millions
from this traffic; and it is already said that
New York capitalist is ready to put on
seventeen steamers to cross the Paclhc
ocean if the southern planters will afford
sufficient encouragement for such an enter
prise of transportation of labor from the
shores of Asia.
Indeed, the avarice and perfdy of the
North-so eager and cruel IN this enter
prise of supplanting the negro BY the I'M
portation of another race of laD0rers-ls
the most remarkable thing in the whole
affair; and it alone should condemn 1t IN
the estimation Of every just and humane
mind.
After all their professions of affection
and solicitude for the negro, we find
northern men ready to seize the first profit
able enterprise to crush him out by foreign
competition. anxious only to turn such an
enterprise to scheme Of money making
and to sacrifice TO "the almighty dollar "
the very last remnant OF the black mans
hope, the very crust of bread that freedom
has condemned him to earn IN the fierce
and heartless competitions which they
would now inaugurate, and by the sweat OF
his brow, which, so far from alleviatins,
would wiring out anew