LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA. CHINESE LABOUR.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 70, 20 September 1904, Page 2

LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA. CHINESE LABOUR.

Mr. ' R. S. Hawkins, who was until recently a Stipendiary Magistrate in this country, who is' 'now in Orange River Colony, writes a long letter to a We&tport Jriend, from, .which, as published in a local paper, wo make the fo.lowing extract: — "jn#w, experience has entirely changed my esiunaie of the country. I see from facts that it is a tino agricultural country, aad a fine stock country. I had sent my son out some pure-bred Soutadowu sheep from tho North Island, some moro Down ewes, and fifty ewes from, Canterbury. They are looking splendid. You don't see such sheep on tho Coast, »ni you don't sco sheop in finor condition in Canterbury in winter. Tho climate is really superb, cold nigh.ta with, just a slight frost, and clear warm sunshine and biue skies all day, and air so uure that nothing' got« a fvlut. Wo can hong meat up iv the kitchen with tho sun streami ing in on it for three weeks, and it does not got the siighio»t taint. VVo ore suuoit above (h_o sea,. Everything, however, hi* to, bo douo ; every bit of leuciug, and no timber j only huge quamwl stono posts 6ft, 9in long, and 12vn by am, thick, with irou standards between, aud seven barbed wires — rea 4 rock and sheep fences. \Ve hope to get iv some trees this spring as a 'start. There aro ut prosent ont> uur« ot peach trees' on the farm. Thor© is tlie I greatest id I round. Numbers of men fi-on), C^pe Qolouy have settled in this colony aud -.the Tranwaal, and (-.he otbe? dp,y it was rtatod there wero still t,ix thousand applicants for land in this colony. Tho great cloud over the whole is Lh« Chin,es» crime on the Rand. What a splendid Jffritish colony t What a giorioua homo. lor the British race it womd havo beeul. Such splendid land, such a inagnificant^ white man's climate ! What a orinio to' hand it ovor to the lust of gold 1 People iv Now Zealand and Australia havo ao <• conception of what the substitution of low paid native anu Asiatic labour means in trade and in the circulation of money. Instead of the white labourer spending £§D a year, the native living on mealies, and Chines kept on ohuap diet, are earning and saving Is 6d a day. The&e Johannesburg traders aro mad to join in such a scheme. The Orange River Colony, will produce a fine race pf white settlors. Johannesburg will poison tho town wilh Chinamen. ShaiUjO and disgrace to England 1 Evorv crime has its punishment, and most sur^j. ly will it follow this one. England is respousiblo for. tho crime of her politicians and her Parliament." I ■-