The Morning herald., 1876-07-03
THE OHINEsE QUESTION

eSting letters, IN the AnnalS OF Inc IroP-
agation Of the Faith" as we'll as occasional
letters in other missionary papers, treating
Of Chinese life, will be much better able to
form a judgment about this peoplethan per-
haps any member of the Anti Chinese Lea
que, Of the Pacific coast. The men who con-
duct Eastern journals, treat the threatened
policy Of exclusion as unwise and unphilo-
sophie. Generally it is SO, but exception
ally, and in this case, it is not SO. They
think it is but prejudice Of education
which makes trans-Rocky Mountain men
inveigh against the Chinese, something
akin to that spirit which in the old slave
days made the men Of the South believe
they were right in possessing property in
man, and in believing in classes. They
can see no taint in the presence Of the Chi
nese and wonderisgly ask why miners, and
other laborers, male and female, in coun-
try where the cheap labor of innumerable
hands is needed, opposethe very means by
which their wants can be supplied. The
reason is simple; white men cannot conn.,
pete with the Chinese, and they sneer at the
people Of California, and as much as say
"if you strong Anglo-Saxons cannot COM
pete with this inferior and half-barbarous
race, then the sympathy of the world will
never go out to you if you are undone by
Cinnamon" Ard yet that is the point
wherein the whole trouble lies. The Chi
nese live on food which the white man
could not swallow ifhe were famishing; he
sleeps in cribs that would sufiocate white
laborer; and with all restrictions taken off
there is not trade of the white mans that
the Chinese could not in five years monop-
olize. Show them once how boot is made
and they forever after will make boots as
nearly like their first model as one birds
nest 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 Eng
lish, German, nor Dutch, not even the
Jews can compete with them.
They refuse all amalgamation, and are
as wilfully and woefully ignorant of the
duties Of citizenship, as they are of either
religion or morality. If family of any
cognate race were to settle in this city; nav
if a family of Negroes We're to do SO, a
knowledge of the settlers would exist
somewhere. In the performance of the
duties Of citizenship, or the functions aris-
ing from church or society membership,
they would be known; but who knows any,
thing Of Sam Kee, of Sixth street, and his
family, colony, or harem? We are so ig-
norant of the social life of the Chinese,
that we are unable to distinguish the sexes.
The Nevada Enterprise thus summarizes
the question:
"For our good on this coast we wish a
dozen ship loads of coolies could be landed
| in New York, enough to make Chinese
| quarter on some street in that city. It
would do some Eastern editors good to 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 pub
lie work intended for the health, prosperity
or intelligence Of the people would ever be
helped by them; they would see that trades
were falling into their hands; but that the
public somehow were not prospering, see
that from their quarter of the city the other
races were drawing away as from q pesti-
lence, and would understand that in case of
danger million of these half-made men
would be no defense. This is simply bus
mess look, but going further they would see
that every woman af the race was both a
harlot and slave, that they were being
bought and sold daily, and that every effort
of courts and officials could not check the
vice for a moment"
! The worst feature Of the Chinese cues
ton, is that which crops out to the ken of a
lawyer. Although in intendment of law,
living under our laws, they live under a
code of their own country, in alltheir con-
tracts, and relations with each other, and
that there is no power in our laws to alter
the resolve, in this regard. The immi-
grant from Europe if he be of Celtic or
Norman blood, amalgamates within a gen.
Grafton. So also the Scandinavia, or Sclave.
The Teuten is Americanized in two gene
ratiions, and and it il then hard to tell