The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1876-03-03
8 The Chinese Question:.
A SERIOUS SOCIAL PRoBLEn-JonN's WAY OF
-. :, 49, !. 3. .IIYfNsa ,.-.. : 7 90 -.


From the Virginia New Entcrprise.l
The learned men who conduct command
Ing eastern Journals cannot understand why
the people of this coast are opposed to the
inflpx OF race which all admit possess pa.
tient industry and thrift who, as arule, are
peaceable citizens, and who ask for nothing
except what they csu earn. They think 1t 10
but prejudice Of education which makes
us inveigh against the Chinese, something
akin to that spirit which in the old slave days
made men of the South believe they were
right 10 possessing property In man, and in
believing In classes. They can see no
taint 10 the presence Of the Chinese, and
wonderingly ask why we, In country
where the cheap labor of ippuner-
able. hands is needed, oppose the very
means by which our wants can be sup
piled. We tell them that white men cannot
compete with the Chinese, and they sneer at
US, aud as much as say s.ifyeu strong Anglo
Saxons will never compete with this inferior
and haf.barbarous race, then the sympathy
of the world canuot 60 out to you II you are
undone by ChinameD." And yet that is the
point wherein the whole trouble lies. The
Chinese live on food which the white man
could not swallow II he were furnishing be
sleeps in cribs that would sutfocate white
| laborer; and with all restrictions taken OF
there Is not trade Of the white mans that
| the Chinese could not 10 FIVE years monopo-
| lie. There is no invention in the race. but
| their faculty for imitation Is marvellous.
Show them once how boot Is made and tney
| forever after will make boots as nearly like
| their first model as one BIRDS mes
! is like another. In all the western Pacific
| Islands and on the Indian coast they have
driven every competitor away, and they
control the trade there; neither English,
German, nor Dutch-not even the Jews-can
compete with them. For our good, on this
coast, we wish a dozen ship-ioads Of coolies
could be landed in New York-enough to
make Chinese quarter on some street in
that city. 1t would do some Eastern ed.
itors good 10 see how they live and to find out
how one Of their dens smell. They would
| begin then to realize that If there were
million of them, instead Of few hundred,
New York city would be poorer instead
of richer for their presence. They would
| begin to realize that no newspaper
would ever be subscribed for by even
! one of all that million that no public
work intended for the health, prosperity, or
| intelligence of the people would ever be
| helped by them. They would zee that
| trades were falling into their hands, but that
| the public somehow were not prospering;
see that from their quarter OF the city
l the other races were drawing away as from
| 6 pestilepce, and would understand that in
case of danger million of these half.made
| men would be no defence. This Is simply
| business look; but going further they would
see that every woman Of the race was both
| q barot and slave; that they were being
bought and sold daily. and that every effort
| of courts and officials could not check
| the vice for o moment. This might
| be extended indefinitely. 1t might be
| shown that under our laws they but follow
the law of their own country in all their reia-
tions with each other, and that there is not
| power enough in either police or courts to
change this state of affairs for a moment.
The European soon merges with our people,
| and it is hard to tell after generation or two
| whether man is of English, German, or any
other European descent. But the Chinese
| have not changed for thirty centuries, and
| all other lands except China are to him and
his foreign shores forever. Their presence
| here now, and the possibilities of the evils
! they may bring to our people in the future,
is more serious problem than the American
| race have yet been called upon to decide.