The Independent. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1895-1905, 1900-08-14
Is There a Chinese slider

| WroDRE III we were IN their place,
with their old traditions aud civiiz-
alton; feeling as they feel, educated
as they have been educated, and oc
cupying country already too
densely populated, would we do any
better than they are desiring to do7
That is: keep the foreigners out"
There is widely spread disposition
among men OF the best thought to
admit the Chinese have a case
against the foreigners. To step into
crowded country where your pres
ence is distasteful, and insist upon
staying there and overrunning it, is
no more right than to enter a
household unbidden and insist upon
occupying it to the exclusion OF it's
rightful owners. No such proceed
ing would be tolerated in any Cali.
fornia home where shot gun is
kept. For many years the iucom
ing Of Chinese foreigners has not
been tolerated even in our own free
country. We have rigidly excluded
them by law, and taught our boys
to stone and brick-bat them as they
passed along the streets. Nay,
morel Our grown men have fallen
upon them and put them to death
by fire, pistol, and gun as savsgely
as the Boxers have probably mas
sacred our people in Pekin. Toese
are ugly truths to contemplate, but
the uglier fact is that they are
truths! To us, tho Chinese are
heather, to them we are "white
devils" What is the difference be-
tween the two' Simply a matter OF
deeply ingrained prejudice affects
both sides. We have been at pains
to exasperate their prejudices; they
have been as mindful to let ours
alone.
A missionary, an exceptional one
who at this juncture ventures to
discuss things as they are, has just
been telling his New England
friends some straightforward facts.
The Reverend E. e, Aitken, men,
Der Of the American board, says
"the aggressions and insolence OF
foreigners in China have been suffi-
cient to develop the present feeling
of bitter hostility" Mr.. Aitken,
after twenty years OF service in the
China field, sanely concludes that
elf missions had confined them.
selves to missions, and diplomats
had treated China decently and
fairly, the Boxer movement would
not have arisen" The Chinese have
bsen humiiated by foreign powers
in the last sixty years, more often
than any othar proud people in
modern times. England forced the
opium trade upon them. and bullied
them whenever it suited her. France
aud Germany have acted even
worse, and the European powers to.
gether, in seiging parts of the coun-
try's seaeoast, have done things IN
der the yelled threat OF force which
would have driven any other self
respecting nation instantly to war.
As to ourselves, as we have already
pointed out, we have demanded ac-
cess TO China, while excluding its
people from our own land, and have
massacred inoffensive "pigtails" who
came not here TO establish o new re-
lgion or annex our country, but to
plant our farms, pick our fruits,
build our railroads, and honestly
pay their debts. All this, while the
thought of an American being as
saulted in China, sends the hot
blood to our Christian temples
Load Salisbury the other day
made timely point in a speech to
a missionary deputation that waited
upon him to urge action in China
for the better protection Of mission
"work." His Lordship pointed
that "the Chinese made no attack
upon Christianity as religion,
and that they did not interfere
with missionaries because they were