CHINESE IN SOUTH AFRICA. TO THE EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 12 August 1905, Page 15

CHINESE IN SOUTH AFRICA. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — Laat week I sent you tha Birmingham Daily Post of the 24tl t June, giving a condensed -r&port of ths last of five public meetings held in Birmingham for the purpose of hearing a Mr. Mather, -who had hesn brought over from Soufch Alrica to reply' to Mr. Outhwaifce. The latter, aa you may know, ra an Australian 'by birth, and after spending some time in South Africa during -the 'Milner autocracy opposing, as a journalist, the passing of the Chinese Ordinance, and eventually realising -that local . opposition had bean crushed foy "boycotting" and similar gentle meant* of oppression into dogged silence, he lame last year to England, and ha« since been engaged in lecturing to audiences •n Great Britain, showing how the muv ing induetTy in the Transvaal has b<. :ome a monopoly to enable a few rich cnen to become Ticher. Lord Milner and the members of tho Home Government have again and again. ! asserted that the employment of Chinese labour in the Transvaal would lead to a corresponding or proportionate increase in white labour on the mines. The fol\owing official figures will ahow the worth of the MilneT-Chambcrlain-Lyt-telton aeaertiona; — In January, 1904, thero were employed on the mines 75,027 natives and 12,814 I wljites. In February, 1905, there were 97,882 natives and 31,424 Chinese employed — a total of 129,306 coloured labourers. This number should, on the promised proportionate increase, give em ployment to 22,084 whites, whereas only 15,831 whites were employed — a shortage of employment for 6253 whites. Or, as stated by 'Mr. Baker, now M.P; for East "Finsbury, in 1902 the number 0/ ivhitee employed for every 100 coloured men was 22; in 1903 19; in 1904, 18; *nd in 1905, only 14. The infamy of the Home Government in (selling the heritage of the white people <and natives in South Africa to Polish and German Jews and other' aliens, and a lew so-called Britishers of t the " Jameson Raid " type, is bringing home to the people in -TSngland the cruel wrong done at a cost to the peopTo of £250,000,000 and over 30,000 lives. Ministers and missionaries in each British colony -will realise the degradation to which the native women and men vili be subjected by contact with a horde of Chinese accompanied by two women. It-is of frequent occurrence for Chinese storekeepers in fcbs Transvaal to he fined for selling opium and keeping opium dens, and this with the sanction of a British Government, which ha* " used the arffj of freedom to rivet the fetters of bondage,' — I am, etc., HON SECRETARY E.C. WHITE LEAGUE. , London, 7th July.