THE PROBLEM OF COLOUR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2873, 11 September 1916, Page 6

THE PROBLEM OF COLOUR

If God made tho white man white, the yellow man yellow, and the black man black, Ho intended the white man to remain' white, the yellow man yellow, and the black man black. —Gail Hamilton. Sir,—The protest of the Wellington Trades and Labour Council against the advent of the Hindu is, coming from such a quarter, remarkable for two things: First,- it explodes the oft-re-peated claim of tho brotherhood of the world's workers, aud ; secondly, it is an admission that militarism is justified, for though they appeal to tho Immigration Act, they know that an immigration Act, without' a gun to back it up, is futile. The claim for a white roan's land is justified by; the weight of centuries. The Americans tried the brotherhood principle with disastrous results, and to-day they are forced to admit that the only class who have dealt successfully with the negro was the slave-owners of tho South. They handed him over to the nation in '65, moral, honest, without deceit, and without crime. In the hands of the nation he has become idle, vicious, immoral, and diseased. Insanity, which was unheard of in the days of slavery, increased at an alarming rate amongst tho free negroes. In eyery Southern State thero are asylums for tho coloured insane, oach of which is crowded with inmates; and twenty-five per cent, of the children born in Washington City are admittedly illegitimate. He is three and a half. times more criminal in the North-east, where he has not been a slave for a hundred years, than ho is in the South, whero he was a slave till '65. He is far and away tho most criminal element of the American population. He is thrco and a half times more criminal than the native-born American. He is three times more criminal than the foreign white, which includes the scum from the cess-pools of Europe; and tho negro who can read and write is more criminal than the illiterate, a thing which can bo said of no white race on the face of the earth. ■ ,/' Tho above figures, taken by R. Bingam, ex-Mayor of Now .York City, from the United States Census, form instructive though unpleasant reading. How.tho negro holds the South against the wnite artisan |is shown by the migratory tables of the various States. In "the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,; Mississippi, and Arkansas, as a whole, tho proportion of foreign-born inhabitants to the native-born is only one m one hundred and twenty-five (1 inl2s). In the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Winconsin, Minnesota, lowa, Missouri, North South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansae, as a whole, the proportion of foreign-born inhabitants to the native born is one in five (1 m 5). So the negro has held the South against the migratory currents of the world. Tho experience of America with the negro is the same as California and ,Hawaii i with the Japanese, Fiji with the Hindu, and South Africa with the Chinese. In the race for Samoa tho British warships only beat those of Japan by four hours, and there are indications that the white man's claim to dominance in the South Seas will have to be proved in 'the historic court of. the survival of the fittest, and when that problem comes to bo solved, the man with tho biggest gun will have the most to say,—l am, etc., „^, TT FRANK BELL. Shannon.