AMERICAN FORESTERS AND NEGROES.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7547, 22 September 1886, Page 3

AMERICAN FORESTERS AND NEGROES.

We clip the following from a London paper:— " Yesterday (August 4) tlio'fifty-seeond High Court meeting of the Ancient Order of Foresters was resumed in the Floral Hall, Leicester. The High Chief Knntfer, Mr Hudson Lester, occupied the chair, and 546 delegates were present. One from Now South Wales and another from Queensland were invited upon the platform and were heartily applauded. " The investigation committee's report was first considered. The clause relating to tho exclusion of colored persons from the order in America, expressing a hope that a satisfactory solution of this vexed question would be devised, was adopted. The American delegates, Mr Haynes and Mr M'Murty, however, were heard at length on tlia question. , " Mr Haynes affirmed that the admission of colored persons would result in the utter annihilation and destruction of the order in America. No one would go further than himself in granting equal rights to all men, irrespective of creed, nationality, or color, and uoth he and MrM'Murty joined in the war of freedom which shook off the shackles of 4,000,000 of American slaves. Thoy did not ask for any special sympathy or favor, but merely the right which they believed Was granted to the Subsidiary High Court to manage their affairs as they believed would prove most conducive to the welfare of the ordor. Beside the negroes there were vast nnnibers of Chinese, who were introducing all their vices and were competing unfairly with whito labor, and against whom there were strong prejudices. Time, lie urged, might eventually solve this difficulty, but the present moment was not opportune for de&ling with the question, The ; /act that the vote of the Detroit Convention was 232 to 96 against removing the restriction that only white mon should bo admitted into the order, showed the feeling of American Foresters upon this matter. They asked for the right to protect , themselves as Foresters, a,nd then to go in, if there was a favorable chance, for sympathetic sentiment. "Mr M'Murty admitted that the objection to negroes amongst Foresters, even by men who had held out their hands to assist them to freedom, was an enigma difficult to explain, though there were causes about which lie did not desire to speak. One great danger was that the nemo Would be used for political purposes, and would convert courts into political arenas instead of organisations for the benefit of Forestry. Another difficulty was the inherent defects of negroes, respecting which he quoted numerous authorities. Ho also dwelt upon the excessive mortality amongst colored persons, j especially in tho south, as a formidable ] obstacle financially to the indiscriminate admission of colored persons into the order. He believed that Foresters who belonged to other societies wonld sever the connection with the order if- the exclusion of colored persons were removed, and, after expressing an earnest hope that nothing would be done that would provoke seces- • j sion, lie concluded by quoting Tennyson's ! ode for the opening of the Colonial Exhibition."

" The question will be subsequently discussed when a proposition dealing with this subject is reached." „ The matter was not a^ain discussed during the sitting of the High Court.