The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1879-07-26
CHINESE IMMIGRATION.

! We clip the following from an exchange:
Fully three thousand Celestials arrived
at Portland and San Francisco during the
last month. Dispatches state that all ships
now bring full complement, and Hong
Kong advices say that passage is engaged
ahead estimated at 10000. Like swarm
ing bees, the crowds of China are on. the
wing, seeking room for life where food is
accessible. Not an easy task to stop the
flight of nation swarming.
Public attention, absorbed by other
matters, has been withdrawn for time
from the danger to be apprehended from
an influx of Chinese. The agitation in
California and Oregon, and the pendency
of the prohibitory law in Congress, check
ed this influx for time, but it seems it is
now being renewed in more formidable
proportions The crowded Purlieus of
the Celestial Empire threaten to disgore
their surplus millions on our western
shores, to be scattered like an army of To-
Gusts all over the land. Unless measures
are taken to prevent it, the influx of Chi
nese for the balance ofthe century will be
measured only by the facilities of transpo-
tation. Is this desirable? Can it be
borne?
Without considering the effect of the
importation of such a mass of vice, barba-
rism, and paganism on our civilization,
we will glance only at its effect on the
condition of the workingmen and work
women of the United States. These con-
stitute large majority of the people of
the Union, and their interest must be look
ed to in the considering of every indus
trial, social, and financial problem. The
humblest lahorer that delves in the ground.
or that carries the hod to the housetop,
for his daily bread, has an equal right with
the lordliest millionaire to say, this is my
country, and to demand of society the
great fundamental right-the right to H0e
the right to earn a livelihood by his own
exertions. -~Wo to the few who in their
eager greed for increased wealth ignore
that right-a right which millions hold
and 5cfU not resz9n.
A million Of American men and wo-
men are out of employment, and other
millions are working for wages that barely
sustain life. The great problem of the
age is to so revive and Diversity industries
as to afford remunerative Employment to
these. What will be the effect of throw
ing two or three hundred thousand Ash
IL. l.,
Manifestly to lower wages, to still further
degrade labor, to throw other thousands
of white men, women, and children out
of employment. Is this right? Is it hui
name? Is it meet to take the children's
bread and cast it to the dogs?
But it is not hired labor only that would
be damaged. Every farmer who tills
his own farm would be injured by the
cheapening of agricultural products, if the
Chinese should be employed by the great
land proprietors. And this brings us to
the branch of the subject with which we
are more Immediately concerned. A num-
Der of swamp planters, in-this State and
Louisiana, backed by New Orleans COM
mission merchants, have been negotiating
to secure Chinese labor, to turn the tide
of Chinese immigration into the fertile
regions on the banks of the lower Missis-
sippi What will be the ultimate effect
on the price of cotton-on the interests of
cotton raisers in other parts of the State?
Are the farmers, of Mississippi, and es-
pecially the working farmers, going to see
this new slave trade inaugurated without
protest? Are good citizens in all avo-
cations willing to see such an addition to
our already heterogeneous population? Is
the hope of seeing Mississippi some day,
a commonwealth of free happy, prosper
Gus white men to be abandoned forever
and all to crafty the insatiate cupidity OF
few swamp planters, who ignore the
very existence of white men outside their
charmed circle, who would today Afri-
canize our State government to conciliate
their fugacious negro laborers, who would
tax the people of the whole Union. to pro.
tect their lordly demesnes from overflow