The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3093, 27 May 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1881.

The question of Chinese immigration is a much more serious one than many people give themselves the trouble to think. Within the last few weeks, says a New South Wales up-country paper, two thousand Chinamen have landed in Sydney, and it appears to be highly probable that twenty thousand may arrive before the end of the year. Such is the opinion of the Chinese merchants in Sydney, and they don't relish the prospect. Already indeed they are urging the authorities to devise some means of checking this inroad. They are not anxious to have a number of their conntrymen thrown on their hands for they cannot let them starve, and they are in all probability also anxious to avoid the strong manifestations of public opinion which such an inroad would undoubtedly cause. Work is plentiful enough in New South Wales just now, and the prospects of working men for the next few years ought to be very fair. Under such circumstances the arrival of a few hundred Chinese might pass unchallenged. But when it comes to two thousand arriving in a fortnight, with the prospecc of more thousands at the back of them, attention is naturally enough attracted to the phenomenon. So far as can be ascertained it appears to be a genuine exodus, as yet only on a small scale as compared with the immense Chinese population. It is not brought about, so the Chinese merchants pay, by the operation of capitalists either in Australia or in China. It is not promoted by the " bosses." Those who come do so on their own responsibility, and are perfectly free agents when they arrive. They are not recruited, as Chinamen often are, from the population of the eeaport towns. They are countrymen of the class which we should call agricultural laborers, and many of them are illiterate, which is not a common thing with the Chinamen who generally come to Australia. But they are fine stout men, and many of them have brougth a little money with them. . Besides this, they have paid for their passage £9, which is the charge from Hong Kong without provisions, so that they cannot be said to belong to the impoverished classes. They are, in fact, the provident ones, escaping from the fa&rd times in China, said at present to be unusually hard. It is quite certain that if emigration from China is at all likely to continue from any cause on anything like the scale that may be anticipated from the landing at Sydney of 2000 Chinese in a fortnight legislation must be called to the aid of this colony. The mere fact that these people are annaally increasing amongst our population should be sufficient to create some little alarm. If the millions in China took it into their heads to seek new homes in these islands there is nothing in our scatate book to prevent such an inundation. The cost of the passage is no deterrent to those willing to leave the Flowery Land, and New Zealand offers an attraction to people who are cramped for room in their own country.