CHOW CANDIDATE.

GOES UP FOR GISBORNE.

Wong King and Reiorm.

The Joke aud the Moral.

Lots of clever people have wondered and asked themselves and. others what is going to happen on. the awakening- of China ? It is a question deserving of studious thought and serious consideration, because when China awakens the national existence, of the people of Australasia will be threatened, and the "Yellow Peri!" will then become the menace that is so lightly spokpn of to-day. New Zealand knows the Chinaman, and has good cause to fear of the Mongolian who is within our gates to-day, hot because he is A DESriSET" MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY, but because he is dirty, and cheeky, and, which is more to the point, because he is cheap, and with his cheapness there is nastiness. "John Chinaman" m New Zealand isn't by any means typical of the real, clean ■clever Chinaman whom the traveller m China know*. The specimens we have out here are Cantonese, the sort who were poured into South Africa after New Zealand's young men had "finished" the honest" humble Boer farmer. Gisborne, that hard - drinking, weary, dreary town, the shores of which are lapped by the rolling waters of Poverty Bay, which is mostly Maori and dog, and the best feature of which is the cheerfulness with which it sticks to "Jimmy" Carroll, has just had a taste of' "the Yellow Peril," and • hasn't to date got off the municipal "jag" it entered on the other day, when the white trash and . the brown trash and, all the other trashes were called upon to elect a few councillors. Now, anyone who knows Gisborne taows also that there is ample ajoom for municipal improvement m the town. THE STREETS ARE A DISGRACE, while the reputation of Gisborne's water is known throughout the Domini,on, and the returned visitor always remembers with peculiar • pain the effect of having- once taken a nip of Gisborne water.' Whisky is the popular drink of the town, and -it isn't any wonder. However, Gisborne was prepared for a lot of things, but it got the shock of its the other day when the nominations for the vacancies on the were published, because the 3ast, but by no means the least, name of those coming out as "re:iormers" was one "Wong King, and i;hat Wong King meant business or, at least Ms committee did, was borne out by an advertisement appearing m one of. the local papers •appealing to sports to vote for Wong; King, "the popular fancy," who was sure to give has supporters A GOOD RUN FOR THEIR MONEY., There was no mistake about it, Wong King a had been nominated to run for the Council and represent, Ms fellow-citizens on the Council. .And what is more, Wong King is a and as such was entitled, to stand for election, and there is.. according to one authority, no doubt on the point that Wong King would have been as useful on the Gisborne Borough Council as a number of others. Wong didn't have any new fang-led notions about him. He pointed 'to the fact that last year 'he had paid £7' m rates, and he worked it out that for the ensuing lyear he would be "touched" for £■21, «and as rates m China come to -.-about £>X per year it was no good •to "Gundy," who m this case happened to be a Chinese gardener, named Wong King:, who, if anything <at ail, is a bit of a capitalist and ,is spoken of by the local newspapers as being A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE FELLOW-TOWNSMAN. The only dubious point about the whole affair is whether Wong hadn't ■been fooled into signing his nomination, paper and whether a hoax was not perpetrated on the people of the town. Wong didn't sav'eo when it was pointed out to him tiiat if he was elected a good deal of his time would be occupied m attending to the affairs of his fellow citizens, and when this fact dawned on the Chink, he smiled "child-like and bland" and said "Whaffor," and died n it, though it was too late. The die was cast,, he Mad to ?o forth, and when the numbers went up Wong, with 134- votes m his favor, came seventh and last. It was a. joke, a huge joke m a way, but Wong showed, when it came to questioning him on municipal matters, that he w«s not so innocent, and was able to point out what the town required, and when it is LEFT TO A CHINAMAN ,to point ,out how badly the town ''is. oil' from a municipal point of >view, then it is up to the people of Gisborne t,o take a hand and see that the town is looked after. Indeed, one effect eff the nomination and the candidature of Wong King was that the white people did buck up and voted for white men. There is not^ ?Lhe slightest do£ft>* - that the candidature of Wong King was a joke, but it was a ioke that carried a moral with it, and that moral is that G isborne has been shown to be a dead sort of place where nobody cares ' anything for anybody, and it was left to a China- | man to bring the people to shame.