Year: 1879




SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. l.


At the late election in California a
vote was taken on the subject of Chi
nese immigration, resulting in prac-
tically unanimous expression against it.
Whilst this unanimity arose very
largely from Indifference, from the
manner in which the question was pre-
sented, and from the knowledge that
the vote was imperative, save as an
expression of opinion, there is little
doubt that the decided sentiment of
the people of this State is against any
further Chinese immigration, and this
sentiment is shared by the large num-
Der who would look upon the imme-
diate expulsion of the Cinnamon al
ready here as disastrous. In other
words, the anomaly is presented of a
sparsely-settled community eager for
increased population, and yet deliber-
ately rejecting a class Of immigrants
possessed of many desirable qualities,
and whose sudden withdrawal would
confessedly be severe blow to every
industry of the State


In themselves, Independent of their
race and religion, the Chinese are
useful members of the community
particularly in q new country like Cali
fornia. They pervade the whole State,
are merchants, miners, mechanics, gar
deners, farm hands, laborers and demes-
tics, as well as practically monopolizing
the laundry business of the country.
The whole social fabric would go to
pieces if they were suddenly removed.
In character they are docile, teachable,
quick to learn, with retentive memo
ries, apparently very forgiving of i'll
treatment, perfectly reliable in their
contracts and free in remarkable
degree from the vice of eye-service.
Crimes of violence, except among
themselves, are practically unknown
among them, though their treatment
is frequently such as to justify them.
As laborers and farm-hands they are
not equal to good Americans, but
superior to the majority of white farm
hands and laborers in this State. They
are, in most respects, capital domestic
servants, their worst fault, that of fire.
quent change, disappearing when they
are kindly and considerably treated.


WHY THEY ARE NOT WANTED.


1t would seem somewhat surprising
that such a class of immigrants should
not be encouraged, particularly in a
State like this, whose one great need
is patient industry, and which gladly
welcomes the advent of the Italian
peasants, who alone of foreign immi
grants seem capable Of coping with
the Chinese in those outdoor avocations
in which the Chinaman is particularly
successful. And when pressed for rea-
sons for this apparent caprice nine Cali
fornians out of ten can give none, or
only such as are silly and false on their
face-mere denunciations. The Chi
nese do not work cheaply in this State,
neither are they displacing any class
here; to those acquainted with the
conditions Of wages and labor in any
new country such statements carry
their refutation with their utterance.
Yet there are reasons for this distrust
and dislike of Chinese immigration,
and the feeling that leads to their
rejection is probably based consciously
or instinctively upon them by all save
the brutal mob of the sand lots and
their congeners through the State.
One reason is that, with all their good
qualities they have the defect of not
being immigrants in the American
sense of the word that is to say, they
are advcnturcrs, not colonsts. They
do not come as white or European
settlers do, seeking n home. They
come unaccompanied by their families,
rarely, if ever, acquiring land, and not
desiring, perhaps not capable of citizen
ship Their ideas of civilization are
as different from the American and
European standard, as that of the
African, and the prospect for asslmila-
tion with it is more hopeless than in
the case of the negro, from the double
fact of their possessing civilization
| which, while better in itself, is more
| unyielding than the barbarism of the
African, and that there is no desire or
opportunity for them to become at
tached to the soil by the rearing of
families. Another and stronger reason
is, that if they could be thus perma-
nently located race prejudices would
prevent their assimilation or absorption
| by the whites to even greater extent
than in the case of the negro, and the
consequence would be the establish
ment of another caste of laborers, at
tended with the most disastrous results
to our true prosperity.


But to the great mass of Americans,
California is so remote and dscon-
| nected from the rest of the country
| that its peculiar institutions are but u
matter of more or less philosophical
interest, and this one in particular
would continue so but in the improbable
event of the Chinese immigration
reaching such proportions as to threaten
I the establishment of an Asiatic colony
on our Pacific coast, and in the posi-
biity of that immigration overlooking
the Sierras and seeking lodgment in
the East in competition with one or
more of our laboring classes. Is such
an event as the latter more than mere
possibility, and would it be desirable? F?
These are practical questions aud pos
sibly worthy of brief consideration.


WILL THE CHINESE STRETCH EAST
WARD?


The only reasons that will deter Chi
nesc immigration from setting in
steadily east Of the Mississippi are the
expense of the journey, lack of places,
insufliciency of pay and n decided
adverse public opinion. The first Of
these would and could be easily over
come by the mutual profit of the i'm
migrants and the public-spiritcd mana
gers of the Pacific railroads. The
operation of the other three would, |
i IuI;a.. ron,,li In iLnir ranA rini in,, (if