THE MULTIPLYING "JOHN."

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 78, 2 April 1913, Page 8

THE MULTIPLYING "JOHN."

.•MTCBXANB'S INCREASING !POPTJI«A3IITY. '--■ . I 9r. ...whence" comes-he?; - : :, : . r --- not/feom^abroad..-., It cannot but be remarked that Join Chinaman, with his unobtrusive enterprise in the realms of soapsuds, cabbage patches, and fruit vending, i 3 an increasing quantity in the population of Auckland. Any -housewife who purchases the ■week-end fruit, and any man who has

collars and shirt-fronts to risk through the gauntlet of the laundry will testify-to the increasing difficulty of escaping "John" or "Paddy" as he is variously and endearingly dubbed' by his '•foreign devil" customer. There is of course the age descended fruile and insinuative something about your Chinaman who vends fruit and irons the suffering shirtfront which seems to 'beget a confidence in his ability to give better value for the money than his more brusque competitor descended "tfrom Ja-pbet, which has to 'be accounted for, ibnt, apart from this, the sons of Shem are certainly and visibly on the increase in Auckland. The fact that the ■Rev. Mr. ©on is being transferred to Auckland from, the South for mission work among the Chinese residents is of itself significant, and the question naturally follows: "Whence this increase?" It will be interesting to know, therefore, that in the past three years only two Chinese have entered and paid the ipoll tax at the port of Auckland, the last, a woman, arriving in July, .1911, as the wife of a Chinaman naturalised as a British subject. "But this," you will reply, "is absurd on the face of things, for does not pretty well every steamer from Australia bring one or more countrymen of. Cathay to our shores V That also is true, but almost without exception theee are returning Celestials, who have merely ibeen on a holiday jaunt back to China, which gives further food for reflection. For it cannot be gainsaid that whether because "of his ways that are dark and his- tricls that are vain," or whether owing to his superior industry, the heathen Chinee piles up shekels out of all proportion to Jris numbers in the country, and having piled them, friend "John" is not all averse to epeiidJn<r~ some in holidaymaking after his. own peculiar fashion. The Victoria yesterday, took away three of hie countrymen on a trip home to Canton or Hongkong or whichever of the coastal places to which the migratory Chinaman mostly belongs, -while a fortnight ago no fewer than sixteen left on a similar excursion, all with the 'firm resolve to return and make more money in New Zealand.

The solution of the riddle of hie increasing in coir midst seems to lie, therefore, in some other source than his immigration from abroad, seeing that two new arrivals in three years cannot be deemed a very furious fate of influx. The real answer lies in the fact that we are attracting him to our more genial climate from other parts of New Zealand, where infereniially lie must be a decreasing factor in the industrial and social problem. Many, of course, have been the Biibtfcrfuges and dodges in the past by which the innocent Celestial has hoodwinked the Customs officials, hut nowadays it would go hard even with .the astntest of them to , land under cover, of any other personality than • his own. Many a tale is told of old Chinamen., near the natural time for dissolution have left on a visit to China, and returned some time later metamorphosed into smiling.bat inarticulate youths, and' of papers cunningly transferred to the hopeless confusion of inspecting officials. But under our immigration laws the wily Chinaman who enters to-day has, besides paying down lii 3 £100 poll tax, to pass tub education test in English, which latter has put the coniether on many a wily plot to bemuse the authorities. Apart from this, every Chinese who elects to trip it home to China to visit the graves of his ancestors has first to leave his fingerprints behind him, together with a photograph, a duplication of which he carries away. So that , even should he be persuaded to remain in China and entrust his photograph and luck to a living likeness, the finger print awaits to confound the scheme at this end of the journey.

There is one loopftole; by which an impostor might with the proverbial "luck »f the Chinaman " get past the fullback, and that is in .the case of a Chinese jiaturalised as a British subject going to China on a purported holiday. Such an »ne can as a Britieher, saving the mark, refuse ;to be' photographed and fingerprinted, and go and come as he will. In the nature of things, the authorities are otherwise pretty watchful .of the "naturalised" traveller, and should a substitute slip through he and his abetting compatriots have to be more than ordinarily guileful in evading detection, [which.means prompt return of the goode and forfeited papere, which are themselves worth a jound sum in cash to jtbeir proprietors. ■•• ■

But,;; although. thex.Celestial is on the increase in -Auckland; -there seems no reason for unresf among U3 Caucasians, ..-"whether. "our .civilisation" be -a failure ,:'i>f '.-not.'"For John shows:no -Tiolent into upset the. balance: of power our City- Council and-local toodiee '- generally, nor iloes he- make -himself prominent as' a breaker of peace and . laws." In short, although drawn for the •; 'greater part from what ar;e regarded as coolie' and low claes native' of China, he ie in. many «nses a pattern for his European neighbour.