IN CHINATOWN.

Hastings Standard, Issue 33, 4 June 1896, Page 2

IN CHINATOWN.

The proposals with respect to the Chinese emanating from the Greymouth Borough Council, and which are to be brought before the Municipal Conference, to be held in Wellington shortly, are sensible and likely to commend themselves to the members of the Conference. The proposals are three in number; the first is for to confine the Chinese to a separate district. In large boroughs this is highly desirable, as by such means it would be possible to sec to the sanitation and to cope with the other evils peculiar to the Mongolian. The second proposal of the Greymouth Council n to issue licenses to opium dens and stores where opium is sold, with a heavy penalty for a breach of the conditions. This will give the Councils considerable power over the worst feature of Chinese degradation, and prevent the contamination of the white population. The opium-smoking vice has ruined many a home in Sydney and Melbourne, and seeking to regulate the business is better than vainly attempting to stamp it out. The third proposal is to limit the number of persons who may legally occupy the same tenement, with the exception of Chinese families, and to make jt an offence on the part of any Chinese householder if he harbors or encourages to enter any European of immature age, the finding of any infant on the premises being prima facie evidence of harboring. Every parent will see the good effect of this last proposal, for it would prevent a recurrence of the crime of which some southern Chinamen stand _charged. The herding together of Chinamen, and their total disregard of the laws of sanitation and hygiene, are a source of great danger to thickly-populated localities like Wellington. The proposals of the Greymouth Borough Council are infinitely superior to the flatulent oratory of the members of so-called Anti-Chinese Leagues.