The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1888-09-05
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
Further Interviews with Residents upon
the Subject of Chinese Restriction.

Mr.. NJ. Goldberg, dealer in clothing
and gentlemen's furnishings, said: My
idea is that the whole passport system
is swindle. Why not let the Chinese
depart.Iik other people without return
permits, which would put the incoming
of all of them within control. Merchants
such as Goo Kim and Alec do not need
passports to return, as they are we'll
known to our Custom House officers.
About $50 Chinese LETT by last steamer.
Do you suppose that these, if they do not
come back, will not sell their passports?
AS long as you give passports to coolies
YOU will have sWindles. That book
keeping business is all nonsense. A
Chinese merchant has to hire a white
book keeper, and whatever mistakes are
made he will charge to his bOok-keeper,
when an investigation is made in his
bankruptcy Abolish the whole pass
port system is the only way to get rid of
the Cinnamon in this country. Look at
it in San Francisco: it is the same here.
Mr. E. @. Schumann, carriage manu-
facturer, said he had not considered the
Chinese amendment. He agreed pretty
much with a correspondent of the Bulle
tin, in the view that legislation against
being overrun with Chinese was not class
legislation. Otherwise the Constitution
itself Is marked with class legislation, in
it's exclusion of Chinese from citizenship.
Glass legislation refers to equality as be-
tween individuals or callings, rather
than to the relative standing of aliens in
the body polite. There is a great deal
of class legislation now in our laws, in
their regulation of certain kinds of bust
ness. 1t is Mr.. Schumann's opinion that
if matters 60 on as they have been doing,
people will get so accustomed to having
Chinese on the same footing as more
civilized peoples here, that it will not be
long before they will be allowed to share
in the government of the country. That
would be an outrageous development. in
view of the fact that large proportion
of them are nothing, more nor less, than
pirates from Hong kong, who have not
even the regard of the Chinese Govern
ment.
A gentleman who has been one of the
most prominent of our practical planters,
but who prefers that his name should be
withheld, gave views combining the re-
suits of former experience and recent
observation. He would deprecate any
thing being done against the Chinese
now in the country, or the doing of
anything hastily that might be re-
GREETED hereafter. In late visit
to certain planting districts he found
that Japanese were coming into increas-
ing favor as plantation labor in both
field and mill. Also that Portuguese
were in places running the Chinese out
as storekeepers. 1t seemed to him that
it would meet the exigency of the situa
ton if more Japanese were admitted,
also q dine nrOnOrtiOn Of POrtuOI1aGn
which would permit of the safe stoppage
of further Chinese immigration. The
Chinese here would then be obliged to
go to work at the rates offering or else
starve, as there would be an end to their
power of controlling the labor market.
When he was in the business the first
instalment of Japanese was a bad lot,
and he took a strong prejudice against |
them. But he learned that later arrivals |
OF that nationality were of a much |
better class, hence the esteem before |
mentioned in which they are now |
held. There were not the same evils !
connected with Japanese labor as with !
the Chinese. They were not so clannish, |
and his experience was that, unlike the |
Chinese, they did not screen each other |
in wrongdoing. He had a vast |
number of Chinese under him in
his time, and it was cut-throat |
business with them all through.
When they got him in a corner they
pressed their advantage to the utmost,
compelling him when the reverse was
the case to cut them down remorselessly.
Moreover, the japanese were of a more
free-handed nature and impressionable
material than the Chinese, hence being
more amenable to training in white
mems ways are less OF a menace as CONF
petitors, at unequal odds, with other