DEFEAT OF THE WHITE MAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 181, 1 August 1892, Page 4

DEFEAT OF THE WHITE MAN.

BY THE GENTLE CHINEE,

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Sir George Grey—in his celebrated speech in the great wooden house of Wellington, perhaps whilst the wind was playfully throwing pieces of rock and half bricks at the unfortunate travellers of its crowded streets—said, " that New. Zealand should be a land of ■white men." To-day we' recall the words of our Grand Old Man, and ab the same timo we have to record the first defeat the whit& -man hassuspained at Che hands of the almond-eyed sons of the Flowery Land.

For 18 years, a market gardener has supplied (by contract) vegetables to tho Auckland and Southern steamers. He has employed 20 men in winter, and about 30 in summer ; thus, £40 per week, at the very least, has been circulabed by this industry. , On Thursday the contract for the supply of vegetables was given to a Chinaman, and this morning 20 men bad to announce to their families that they were thrown out of work. / ■

We know thab tbe Chinese musb live as well as the European, bub his living here and competing wibh a. white man has a disadvantage. John can live on a couple of shillings and the smell of an oily rag ; poor Jack Whiteman has to b_, or pretend to be, a Christian, and as such he uses and consumes articles that are heavily taxed.

The question arises : If John can beab his white brethren ab market gardening, can he nob and will he not try to beat them at other callings and trades? If the Chinee is allowed here he should be compelled to live as a white man, to live in respectable quarters, to marry and rear his children' as our own. But he at presenb does not do chis, nor anything like it. He slaves and saves and away he goes with the almighty dollar ! But poor Jack Whiteman stays here—slayes, pays taxes and grumbles, and then dies, murdered by inhuman competition—strangled in the struggle for life. We therefore — some of us being now out of work— ask you, Mr Editor, for " the oause that need's resistance" to help us lay this fact before your readers. Telegrams have been sent to Mr Lawry and other M.H.R.'a, and we respectfully claim your assistance and sympathy,—Yours, etc., James D , Robert A. F , Market gardeners. ...