Morning journal and courier., 1882-04-19

Wednesday Morning, April 19. 1882.
TWO VIEWS OF THE CHINESE,

Two notable contributions to the discus
 sion of the Chinese question have just been
 made. One is by General Butler, who has
 written 8 long open letter to Minister John
 Russell Young. It appears that the General has always been opposed to unlimited Chi
 nese emigration and opposed the Burlin-
 game treaty. He approves the Presidents
 veto because of the harsh provisions of the
 bill and it's evident infringement of the Chi
 nese treaty, and thinks the desired end can be attained in some better way. After justi-
 flying the exclusion of the Chinese by the ex-
 ample of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay
 in their treatment of Roger Williams, Gen.
 eraI Butler proceeds to show that the very
 thrift and industry of the Chinese, which he
 has explored for himself and fully comedies
 are the qualities which make them injurious to the country. This he explains by the oft repeated complaint that the Chinese save their wages and take them out of the country and so are constantly robbing the Pacific coast of it's working capital. He fig
 ures out that $150, 900 day is thus ab- stracted, or $45 ,OO0 annually. He compares this with the system of Irish ab- senteeism, which has pauperized Ireland. His letter as whole is very craftily written and will add in some parts of the country to his "popularity."
 The other contribution is a letter from Mir. Edward Cunningham, well-known Califor- mia merchant, which is much better worth reading than General Buffers letter. In the course of it Mir. Cunningham says
 Of what use is it to reiterate, what has been so often pointed out, that the Chinese are not an emigrating race, that they like their own country and ways; that their coun- try is not over, populated that those who come here, as well as those who go to Manila, Singapore, Java, Siam and Malacca, are only the overplus from two poor provinces on the southern coast, where many of the people are bred to the sea- and so arose the enterprise which led to temporary emigration. The isl ands mentioned above are near at hand reached by a favorable wind, and have been open to them these fifty years or more. Yet to day there is probably not one-tenth the number there that could go and find living There they are encouraged to come, are well treated and protected by the laws the cli- mate is like their own, and living cheap. To come here they must cross a stormy ocean at great expense and when they reach the land they find an inhospitabls people.
 Mir, Cunningham points out that the nat ural protection of our country is in the fact 1 that wages would fall with an overplus of Chinese, and that the danger, if there be any, is self limited. In closing he says:
 No one pays a Chinaman wages here for | love of him. If he is paid $50 per month, | he certainly does $40 worth of work. He 1 has to clothe and feed himself, and he is safe | to expend $15 of his $50. When he re- l turns home after, say three years of indus l try, what is the result to us and to him? He | carries back $540 and leaves $900 which l never would have existed before his coming. | Finally, he does not stay to trouble us by | growing old or fasten himself In any way on | the country. He goes, and we are rid of | him. Some talk of the dignity of labor, and | it's degradation by the presence of the China 1 man. Strong, accurate and faithful, says l their enemy. Oh! Anglo American, is your l son of that stuff that he will deteriorate, l working side by side with faithfulness and | and flourish and grow great and l virtuous reading dime novels, or keeping | company with whiskey bottle?