The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-07

military or naval officer who holds that
State may rightfully secede from the Union,
and call with authority on her sons to follow
her. The country has no money to spare to
educate soldiers whom another power Cor
forty others) may command to draw their
swords against her. Let bygones be bygoncs;
but let us have q clear understanding and a
plain chart as to the future.
THE CHINESE LABOR QUESTION.
From the NJ Y. Herald
The question of the introduction of Chinese
laborers Is exciting great interest all over the
country, and large number of our exchanges
come to us with articles and comments
thereon. But it is more particularly in the
South that the greatest interest is awakened
We pu blished on Monday the call for a aconven-
ton in Memphis of delegates from the cities,
towns, and counties of the neighboring States,
to consider the subec and initiate plans for
bringing in large numbers of Chinese under
labor contracts. One of the leading Chinese
operators in this business in California has
announced his intention to attend the con-
vention for the purpose of Offering contracts,
and we are informed that parties in New
York are preparing to visit Memphis at the
same time with offers of great facilities for
transportation. The convention will meet on
the 18th instant, and there is no reason why
fifty or a hundred tn ousand Chinese should
not be put on the cotton plantations of the
South in time for the picking of next years
crop.
That the convention at Memphis will be
numerously attended there cannot be the
slightest doubt but though eminent as agri-
cultural laborers, it is not alone in tilling the
earth that the Chinese are adapted to fill our
social wants. The experiment has been made
in California, and has proved a success
Nearly two hundred thousand Chinese have
already poured in through the Golden Gate
and to-day they dig the mines and the canals,
build the railroads, till the vineyards and the
gardens, fill the household duties of cooks,
laundrymen and male servants, throng in the
factories, the foundries, the mills, and the
machine Shops and are ready to undertake
any kind of labor, heavy or light. In fact, to
them is due the great revolution inproduc-
ton in California, which enables home indus
try and skill to supply every public want and
contribute to the rapidly increasing wealth of
the community. They are industrious to
high degree, frugal and shrewd in business
others would starve Their intellectual cul-
ture is of high order, and the moral pre-
cepts of their faith assimilate in a high degree
with those of the Christian religion.
The stimulus that brings them hither is the
| vast difference in the wages of labor in the
|
| working man can earn but few cents a day,
and those of our own prosperous but thinly
| settled country. The channels of communi-
cation and supply, now but just opened, must
| continue to increase in capacity until an ap-
Proclamation in the level of wages has been
reached Where that level will lie it is now
impossible to estimate. The advent of steam,
! the rail, and the electric wire in China, will
tend to increase employment and raise the
wages of man there, as they have done here
and in Europe, by increasing the facilities for
distribution and consumption of his produc-
tions. Whether the men of China be brought
here to till our lands and attend our machines,
| or the machines be taken to China, the effect
upon the general condition of mankind must
be the same-a great increase in production,
and commerce that will surpass the widest
dreams of the merchant 1t is estimated that
the steam engine has increased the productive
powers of the twenty millions who inhabit
England hundred fold, and it is a known
fact that while population in any country in
creases in given arithmetical ratio, commerce
increases III a similar geometrical ratio, so
that when the population has doubled their
| trade has increased fourfold.
Apply this rule to our own production and
commerce under the stimulus of Chinese i'm
migration, or to those of China under steam
on her rivers and canals, and in her manufac-
tories, ard 1T will almost seem that millen-
mum of trade is close at hand, when every
man shall be clothed in silks, and every woman
be decked with pearls. This problem is des-
tined to be first worked out in the great valley
of the Mississippi, through the agency of
steam on the Pacific Ocean and multiples of
the iron way from the Pacific to the great
river. Already an agency in st. Louis an
nounces that it is ready to contract to deliver
fifty thousand Chinese laborers, and General
Forrest has closed for one thousand to fill a
railroad construction contract which he
has undertaken. The South is the first
in the field because, in consequence
OF recent events, her needs are greater than
ours. But we have our needs, too, which the
Chinese immigrant can and no doubt will fill
The mission which pertains to us, however, is
to see that this great experiment in human de-
velopment under constitutional government
be conducted with that respect for individual
rights which our laws and our treaties guaran
tee. Conflicting immigrations from Europe
and Asia to our great field of enterprise will
| give rise to many interesting problems in
social government, in morals and in religion;
for with industrial and commercial prosperity
, comes great mental activity. They can al
haImonize under the panoply of free govern
, ment, and our ability to lead them to that re-
| suit will be the highest test of our greatness
a n OeODle