THE TRANSVAAL CHINESE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 156, 26 March 1908, Page 6

THE TRANSVAAL CHINESE.

The'bitterness aroused in the' House of Common 3 by Mr.. Lyttelton's attack upon the Government for permitting the re-enactment of the ; Transvaal

Labour: Ordinance is surprising and regrettable. Surprising, because we had all thought that the political wounds sustained during the last general election in Great .Britain had healed, or, partially healed ; ami regrettable because no good end, no Imperial end, no purpose', indeed,'but a purely party, purpose, can be served by the dragging of the Transvaal .coolies once more into the /political coclcpit at Home. When Mr. Lyttelton, in reading 'the. Transvaal official records, stumbled accidentally upon evidence that the British Government had consented to the' re-enactment - of the coolie ordinance, and joyfully'fired his shot at the Ministerial benches,, lie was probably inspired by no .loftier motive than the embarrassment of the enemy. As one of the .authors l and stoutest defenders, of "coolie labour in tho BaDd mines, Mr. Lyttelton cannot plead that lie is seriously disgusted by the failure of the British Government to sweep the Transvaal .clear -of the aliens. His therefore, .to the issues involved in . the retention of the system, and his position as a polician bent simply upon tripping' up • an opponent are not very edifying. It pannot be said , that the-Govern-ment's sanctioning of the re-enact.ment of the ordinance is'quite satisfactory enough to require no defence. The -best defence, of the Government' is in. the figures quoted by Mr v Churchill, who showed that the colonv had re-" duced the number of coolies from 63;000 to 28,000. It would be straining the»meaning of the Government's pledges to insist that they involved the sudden and violent expulsion of the Chinese. The attitude- of Mr. Smuts, the Colonial Secretary of the Transvaal, as displayed a in his comments upon the Mining Industry Commission's report in favour of white labour;' was a perfectly reasonable one. It was " one thing," lie said, "to introduce a theory gradually, and quite another to upset, the whole economic condition of Society."/ No impartial person can quarrel with such a view /as that, or with Mr. Churchill's contention, reported yesterday, that " any ordinance and regulations' which had been sanctioned formed a necessary part of the liquidation." Mr., Asquith, according to today's news, contends that tha. Government had fulfilled its pledge, which he will not a,dmit to have involved more than hostility to any attempt to establish "the permanence" of Chinese labour. .In the heat of the elections there was, as Mr., Churchill says, " some element of exaggeration," or, as he ; put it in a speech on February 22, 1906, of " terminological inexactitude."

The attitude of the Opposition, : even 'as a party move, is regrettable, for it is not so many months since the Opposition newspapers and politicians were declaring that the price of the Imperial loan to the Transvaal was a secret undertaking by General Botha that he would expel the Chinese. Clearly, the Opposition cannot,' without involving themselves in difficulties, press .too strongly against the very action. w;hich is a refutation of their earlier charges. In this country we have no concern with the party warfare in Great Britain. We have written of the present quarrel merely to place the reasonable view before the public, and also_ to invite public attention to the habit of some British politicians of using the self-governing colonies and Dominions ns sticks with which to beat each other in their party fights. It is particularly surprising that these anti-Imperial tactics should be persisted in by a party which professes to be the true custodian of Imperialism, and which does, indeed, contain tnany strong and earnest Imperialists.