A WORD FOR POOR JOHN.

Evening Star, Issue 7643, 20 June 1888, Page 4

A WORD FOR POOR JOHN.

Adam G. Nichol,'formerly of Wakatipu, but now a miner at Grey Valley, writing to the '\\ akatipu Mail' ou political matters, says:—"The anti-Chinese agitation seems to have got a great hold on the people at the seaboard, ami yet, strange to say, it is the goldlields that suffer most from the Chinese invaders. I was not in my teens when I was an eye-witness of the arrival of the first Chinese on Old Bendigo. At that time no protest was entered against the heathen Chinese, who were looked on as objects of curiosity and the correct originals of the figures mony had seen hitherto only on articles of delf-ware. It was allowed at that time that the Chinese would only work ground that would not pay Europeans ; but many an acre of alluvial ground have they properly deprived of its gold which Europeans later on would only be too glad to work. The Chinese have got a good foothold in some districts by buying up mining rights from Europeans, who, to gain a temporary advantage of the possession of a few pounds, would sell to the Devil, let alone a Chinaman. It is the virtues not the vices of the Chinese that Europeans have to fear, and it is all bosh to say that the Chinese can live on tho ' smell of an oil rag.' When they are doing well they live well. If not doing much they cut their coat according to their cloth—a habit that, I think, would do a lot of good if adopted by a large number of tho white population of the country. I am no advocate of the Chinese; but I have heard many storekeepers state that the Chinamen were thoroughly honest in their dealings, and had not to be hunted up to pay their tucker bill—the same as has to be done with many Europeans. It looks rather strange, on the face of the fact, that many men have been leaving New Zealand in search of work in Victoria lately whilst the Chinese are rapidly coming to the country to dig up its gold, and in due time to take the greater portion of it to bo circulated in China. It is John's industrious habits that excite the ire of the hoodlums in the towns. You will never see a Chinaman hanging over a whisky mill bar and admiring the gold studs in the boiled shirt-front of the landlord ; nor does he do the sundowning business or cry out to the Government to find him work. Selfpreservation is the first law of Nature—as, if the importation of Chinese is not checked, they would soon make harder times for white labor."