Litchfield enquirer., 1877-03-01

Let us suppose that less rumber than
 before, say one-fourth, had returned dur ing these years (though considering the anti Chinese excitement, greater emi- grafton was probable), and we have Remained before lses .eA,OOO . from '6s to '1S........AS,7l6
 giving & total of 1O7, 715 remaining in the country, July, 1873; and showing that if Mir. Vivian's figures had been for. the whole coast instead of California alone
 Che could not we'll have calculated from trustworthy figures for any later period) they would have been @ correct or even moderate estimate-a result correspond ing with what the general candor of his article would lead us to expect. He has forgotten, however, that in 1868, 21, ,000iof the Chinese then on the Pacific coast were in Oregon, Nevada, and elsewhere outside of California; and that ratio nearly like this must have been kept up since; yet waiving this question, we may certainly claim that the excitement of the Califor- mia mass meeting nearly doubled the at. thorized estimate of Chinese population, and made the threatening terror twice as great as 8 cool observer should have drawn.it.A .lF
 "An examination of this table," says Mir. Daniel Cleveland, California writer, commenting in an official letter upon the first exhibit given above, "will show sev. eral interesting and important facts. Dur ing five years the emigration exceeded the immigration, and among these years are the two last. This taken in connection with the really moderate immigration, the great number who have returned to China, and who are constantly doing so, and the fact that all Chinese hope and expect to, spend their last days in the 'fowery king dom, ought to be sufficient to dispeI the fears of some of our public men who, in our legislature and elsewhere, have ex. pressed their apprehension that the 400,- 900, ,0O0 inhabitants of the Chinese empire were about to be poured into our State"
 Observing, therefore, that the majority of Californians have greatly exaggerated the number that have already come, the question comes up. Are they right ln ex- pecting an enormous immigration that may come hereafter? If. analogy, the nature of the immigrating race, and les sons of political experience, are worth anything, the Californians are certainly wrong. The Chinese immigration, as Mir. Vlvan fairly admits, and as careful students will certainly declare, has been sensitive as to the public opinion of the country toward which it tenda. Two messages from Chinese companies of San Francisco. that the immigration was un- popular, have, Mir. Vivian says, suficed to check it. ''The history of the race and their timid character,n says Mir. Seward in his article, ''indlcate that there is no occasion for the fear that they will come to this country in great numbers" '"The great fluctuations in the immigrations,. says Mir. Cleveland, "* have been owing to the action of our people and government" They are not an invad- ing race. encroaching where they are not wanted, aggressive, driving out the pos sessors of the soilas the En0lishman.drove out the Indian. The laws of supply and for this. They will fill the places they can best fill, work at the work they can do better than others, in accordance with po- itical and natural laws that are older than their own old nation; and then they will cease to come. With the demand, the im- migration will end. As long as the demand continues, their coming is proper: as long as they can do work which no other offers to do more skillfully and with less ex- penditure of force and money, their com- ing will be advantageous.
 Do they ''drive out" white labor, in any proper sense-or indeed in any sense at all? The student of broader politi- cal economy than that deduced from the appearance of moment, knows that free trade in labor, so. to speak, is as certain to become the law of the world some day as free trade in anything else. That the attempt artifcially to keep one man rli a branch of work for which another is bet ter fitted, must in the end fail as certain ly as the attempt to force upon e country q, branch of industry, or production for which nature has not made it, But, this general law aside, do the Chinese really threaten any important branch of white mans industry2 Mir. sYiyian's fienrss cell us that in San Francisco there of the Chinese 4,0O0 boot makers, 2, POO wash men, $500 cigar-makers; 2,3OO clothiers and wool-workers; 1,4OO domesaici ser wants. Taking these figures assthay are given (though other tables make ik possi- ble some Of them are incorTectl. it fniGht have been pointed out, first, that tho ''boot-makers' are nearly all slipper.mak- krs, or men engaged iD the simplest me- chanical processes of shoe-making. and that it would probably puzzle San Fran. oiscan to point out white boot-maker, in the ordinary sense of the word. who had ever been refused work because of Chinese laborers' ''monopolizing" his oc- cupation; secondly. that the wash.men have taken up an. industry which did not employ many males before their