The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-09-17
THE CHINESE QUESTION.
From the National Standard

THE CHINESE QUESTION.
From the National Standard
We welcome every man of every race to our
soil and to the protection of our laws. We
welcome every man to the best opportunities OF
improving himself and making money that our
social and political systems afford. Let every
oppressed man come. Let every poor man come.
Let every man who wishes to change his residence
come. We welcome all frankly acknowledging
the principle that every human being has the
right to choose his residence just where he pleases
on the planet. Our faith in our political institu-
tions and in our social system is that both can
endure all the strain which such immigration
will produce. More than this, we believe our
civilization will be perfected only by gathering
into itself the patient toll, the content with
moderate wages, the cunning hand, the inventive
brain, the taste and aspirations, the deep religious
sentiment, the rollicking humor and vivid i'm
agination, the profound insight and far-reaching
sagacity which mark the different races each
contributing one special trait to the great whole.
But such immigration to be safe and helpful
must be spontaneous. 1t must be the result of
individual will obeying the laws of industry and
the tendencies of the age. Immigration of labor
is an unmixed good. Importation of human
freight is an unmitigated evil.
This brings us to the question of importing
Chinese laborers. The Chinese are a painstaking,
industrious, thrifty, inventive, selfrespectful and
law-abiding race. They have some pretensions
to democratic institutions and moral culture-are
a little too much machines, but we shall soon
shake that servility out of them. Their coming
will be a welcome and valuable addition to the
mosaic of our nationality. But, in order to that,
they must come spontaneously, of their own free
will and motion, as the Irish, Germans and Eng
lish have done. If the capital of the country sets
to work by system and wide cooperation to i'm
port them In masses, to disgorge them upon us
with unnatural rapidity, then their coming will
be a peril to our political system and a disastrous
check to our social progress.
We lay it down as a fundamental principle
never to be lost sight of-that every immigrant
of every race must be admitted to citizenship if
he asks it. The right to be naturalized must not
be limited by race, creed or birthplace. Secondly,
every adult here. native or naturalized, must
vote. In spite of this, give us time, with only a
natural amount of immigration, and we can trust
the education and numbers of our native voters to
safely absorb and make over the foreign element.
Irish and German immigration has been only a
ripple on our oceans breadth. Generally speak
ing, 1T has been only a healthy stir. But it is
easily possible for associated capital to hurry the
coming of the Chinese in such masses as will
enable these money lords to control the ballot
box by their bond servants. An extended North
Adams can do more than lessen shoe-makers'
wages. One thousand such Simpsons, the asso-
ciated capital of Massachusetts, can swamp and
overwhelm the ballot box of that State. We
hold it to be clearly within the province, and as
clearly the duty of legislation, to avert this dan
ger. Capital is too strong now. The public
welfare demands that it's political power be Grip
pied. Universal suffrage is admissible only on
condition of an educated people. We cannot
undertake TO educate the whole world at once.
In detachmcnts, millions by millions, we can
digest the whole human race.
Then as to the influence of such importation
on the laboring classes. The Chinaman will
make shoes for seventy cents a day. The average
wages for such work in Massachusetts is two dol
lars. What VIII become of the native working
man under such competition! He met similar
competition from the Irish immigration and the
German. But it never harmed him. They came
IN such natural and moderate numbers as TO be
easily absorbed, without producing any i'll effect
on wages. These continued steadily to advance.
So it will be in the case of the Chinese, if he be
left to come naturally by bis individual motion.
Imported in overwhelming masses by the con-
certed action of capital, he will crush the labor
of America down to a pauper level, for many
years to come.
Putting aside all theories, every lover of pro-
gress must see, with profound regret, the intro
duction here of any element which will lessen
wages. The handspring of our progress is high
wages-wages at such a level that the working
man can spare his wife to preside over a &c home"
can command leisure, go to lectures, take a news
paper and lift himself from the deadening routine
of mere toll. That dollar left after all the bills
are paid on Saturday night means education, in
self-respect, manhood 1t Increases
II tdluc VI CNCIy CIC ICdE Oys Lille u OO"h |
dwellings, opens public libraries and crowds
them dots the continents with cities and cob
webs it with railways. That one remaining
dollar iDsures progress and guarantees Astor's
to their owner better than a score of
statutes. 1t is worth more than a thousand col
and makes armies and police superfuous.
The importation of Chinese labor seeks to take
that dollar from our workingman. The true
statesman must regard such a policy as madness.
The philanthropist must regard it cruel and mad
too. Even so much of such a result as will in
be wrought by the natural immigration
of the Chinese is to be deplored. Every aggra-
walton of it is to be resisted for the sake Of re-
publicanism and civilization. If we cannot find
in the armory of the law some ~effectual weapon
TO prevent it our political and social future for
fifty years is dark indeed, and such a fate as
up Roman civilization is by no means
impossible.
Every one cries out for cheap labor to develop
the country. Even if material or pecuniary gain
were the only requisite for social or national pro-
gress-which, of course, it is far from being
still it is true that unsettled lands may be opened
up too fast for profit, much more really for pro-
gress. Indeed, this random and thoughtless CRY
for cheap labor is one of the great mistakes of
and superficial economists. Seldom has
there been a graver mistake. We assert unhesi-
tatingly that cheap productions are an unmixed
good, cheap labor is an unmitigated evil. Human
progress shows itself in a fall of prices and a rise
Of wages. Although labor makes one-half of
the cost of production, still it is true that the
world gains just so fast as prices fall and wages
rise. To ensure progress the cost of everything
but human muscle and brains must fall. The
remuneration of these two elements in production
must rise. In William PENIS time it took I37
days. toll to buy a ton of -four. In 1890 125
lays labor would buy it. In 1885 eighty days
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