Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-01-19
The Chinese Question.


the late presidential contest put Chinese
plank in its platform, and leading aspirant
for the republican nomination, long before
the assembling of the national convention
of his party, took advanced ground in favor
of the exclusion of the Chinese from this
country. The growing sensitiveness of GER
tain classes of the people on this subject was
forcibly exemplifed by the fact that an
economic feature of the question, the rela-
ton of the Chinese to the price of labor, was
pitched upon by certain INSCRIPTIONS OPP
ponents of General Garfield and made the
basis of an outrageous forgery in which the
republican nominee was represented as en-
tertaining sentiments in favor of "conserv-
ing" the interests of capital by means of
cheap Chinese labor, sentiments which, in
his indignant denial General Garfield
justly stigmatized as brutal. The purpose
of the forgery was to capitalize this popular
feeling against the Chinese in certain sec
tions of the nation, at eliminating period
of the presidential contest to accomplish
the defeat of the republican party. During
the last year this question has been made
the subject Of special commission to China,
and treaty negotiated by this commission,
covering the whole subject of our relations
with China, has been laid before the senate
The discussion of political questions af-
fecting races is too apt to be accompanied
by violent race prejudice. This prejudice
and conflicting selfish interests often seri-
ously complicate the discussion and lead to
unjust conclusions and injurious conse-
quences. In this particular case this preju-
dice is aggravated, no doubt, by false or in
sufficient information respecting this race
whose interests have become involved to
some extent with our own. The passive
rather than active opposition to Chinese i'm
migration which prevails in the eastern and
western states is doubtless traceable to this
latter cause, mixed up as it is more or
less directly with the labor question. The
Pacific states exhibit an active, agrees
i've antipathy to the Chinese that COM
bines every reasonable and unreasonable
cause that can provoke hostility to any
race. Political ambition, ignorance, race
prejudice, and fierce communistic ieal-
ousy of a successful rival in the wages
market, have been conspicuous agencies in
arousing feeling which has led people, we
believe, to attach an exaggerated degree of
Importance to this Chinese question. This
feeling has found expression in certain Sec
lions in great hue and cry that "the Chi
nese must CO." and farther immigration
must be stopped.
A great objection to Chinese immigration
is that it is unnatural, partaking too much
of the character of an invasion. A popular
impression prevails that China is swarming
with myriad millions of people, that millions
have already come to this country and mil |
lions more are on the way that the price |
of labor will become unremunerative to
working men by reason of a surfeit of cheap |
Chinese labor; that deluge of heathenism
and heathenish denominations will submerge
the plains and finally engulf the heights of
morality and Christianity in the land and |
that she admission of the Cinnamon to cit |
izenship and its corollary suffrage will add
fatal weight to the already overloaded
foundation of the republic.
We believe there is large element of |
scare in these apprehensions. More than
four hundred million of almond-eyed beings
are popularity understood to inhabit China |
proper, and from this inconceivabe mass of |
humanity an innumerable caravan" of &C. |
lestials is believed to be crowding to our
shores. So long as politicians and sand.lot
orators gave no occasion to challenge the |
generally accepted reports as to the number
or the density of the population OF China, they
were generally received as a matter of course
very much as children believe the fabulous |
tales in the Arabian Nights Entertainments |
But when these fabulous numbers began to |
be the cornerstone of political crusade,
and investigation, comparisons and practi- |
cal tests were applied to develop what de- |
gree of reliability they contain, gaps, contra |
dictions and improbabilities began to appear
in the hitherto accredited stories of the won |
derful extent of the Chinese population both |
in China and in this country. No official |
census of China has ever been published The |
reputed population rests solely upon conjec-
ture. What purport to be censuses show by |
comparison discrepancies that deprive them
Of all title to belief. The first alleged CEN
sus, taken in 1903, gave the population of |
China at 60,50O,000, discarding the fraction |
OF hundred thousand. The census of 1853 |
showed population of l02,300,000, not an |
improbable increase for period of $50 |
years, but by the census OF 1892 China ex-
hibits population of 307 100000, an in
crease of 205,l00,0O0 in thirty-nine years,
doubtless a harmless device of the "heathen |
Chinee" to tickle the vanity of his emperor |
and astound the outside barbarians. Four |
censuses taken during the fifty years from
1862 to I'LL gave China proper population
varying from 2l,000,0OO to 2S,600 0OO |
These enumerations are said to have been |
for the purpose of levying poll tax and |
distributing military service, while that of |
1892 was for the purpose of apportioning |
government relief during period of famine
Making census one-ffteenth as large for |
tax levy as for bounty is device by no |
means peculiar to the Chinaman, and if his |
census reports are no more reliable than |
some OF our tax lists many people will know |
just what degree of credibility to extend to |
a Chinese census. A Census" taken in 1900
gave population of l43, 100000, another in |
1872, S60,2OO,OO0, a discrepancy in two cen |
suses twenty-five years apart of 100000 |
Apparently Chinese census statistics are as |
unreliable as the recent democratic canvass |
In explanation of the census-taking pro- |
cess in China, John Francis Davis, late |
English commissioner in China, says
"When census is especially called for by |
the emperor, the local officers just take the |
last one and make Jumping addition to it |
in order to please his majesty with the fiat
tering idea of increase and prosperity"
BY series of comparisons between the
carefully enumerated populations of France,
Belgium, England and the United States,
and the alleged population of the Chinese
empire, having regard to the comparative
areas of cultivated land and the visible evil
dence of the density of the population in