THE Mount Ida Chronicle. AND St. Bathans Weekly News. THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1879. THE CHINESE QUESTION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 496, 16 January 1879, Page 2

THE Mount Ida Chronicle. AND St. Bathans Weekly News. THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1879. THE CHINESE QUESTION.

«Theee has always existed in the colonies the smouldering embers of an anti-Chinese, feeling, but'the recent outbreak of antipathy which commenced with the Australian Sream. Navigation Company's seamen in Sydney, may be -regarded as partaking more,of the nature of a serious conflagration. If commenced as a mere dispute between employers, and emplayed, but that.something more, than a mere industrial difference was at the bottom of it from the first is seen both from the almost universal sympathy displayed for. the strikers by the working classes generally, and by- the cool, temperate, and becoming manner, in which the seamen themselves have behaved during the progress of their negotiations with the company. For people who, like the A.S.N", seamen, are conscious of having a strong and justifiable .cause for their complaints or a substantial reason for their demands, are much more apt to be temperate and judicious in"their conduct—than others who take up a hue and cry for mere purposes of "agitation. Nor is the present outbust of antipathy confined only to Sydney. It was at the same time strongly marked in California, in several of the States, and'in all the Australian Colonies, not excepting New Zealand ; so that it may be looked upon as a disorder which, always existing, has suddenly assumed the character and proportions of an epidemic. We can well understand that the feeling should be intensified among seamen. Living in a healthy country, with a pure atmosphere and a comparatively sparse population, a sprinkling of Chinamen may to those on shore be an evil —if an evil at all—quite within the bounds of the endurable. " In such circumstance the European may get to windward of them morally as well as actually, and there being comparatively few points of contact between'the two races, the evil is reduced to a minimum ; while not infrequently Chinese labor, for lack of any other, comes in as a positive boon —as may be occasionally seen everywhere. But to be boxed up with them in a coasting steamer, or in any vessel whatever, is a position which cannot possibly be other than repugnant to any European. Worse still, to be in danger of being entirely supplanted by them on the ocean, which, as an Australian journal properly and wisely points out, has always been regarded as in a peculiar sense the elements of Englishmen, affords a prospect which no ordinary English seaman could be expected to look upon with equanimity. ■- But if in English speaking communities the Chinese are regarded as almost intolerable on the sea, there cannot be the slightest doubt that in large numbers—and to come in hordes appears under circumstances favorable to them to be their tendency—they may become equally intolerable on the land. Up to a certain numerical extent they are ; unquestionably an advantage—a fact'Vh'ich has been pointed out by so many journals of late that it is unnecessary for us to do so now. Ingreaternutnbers they become a source of perennial irritation .and annoyance to European fellow laborers ; while when they arrive at that stage that they can be viewed as a considerable proportional element in the nopulation, a contest of races commences —a contest in which the stronger and the better race is sure to be victorious, but which involves disorder, and perhaps danger to the community at large while this dominancy is being ' asserted. Disorder, inconvenience, and loss were the sole attendants of the recent .seamen's strike, but it is impossible to Ray how much of danger to the peace and good government of the Colony was lurking behind it, had firmness merged into obstinacy, and had a large body of British seamen found themselves permanently supplanted by Chinese on their own waters.

Looking then to tbe fact; that the Chinese as compared to Europeans are everywhere—except perhaps in their own country—known and recognised to be an inferior race, and that Englishman, while tolerating their presence in reasonable numbers, will not and cannot bo expected to brook from them a close and keen industrial competition, it becomes the duty of the Government to give to the Chinese question that amount of earnest at tention which will put them in a position to deal offectively with it when thetimo arrives—if it; ever dues arivo— Liiat Utcry are called upon to deal with

it. It is a subject of the very greatest difficulty on various accounts —partly because, up to a certain extent, as we have already said, the Chinese element may be an advantage to us ; partly because throughout their numbers there is always a proportion, however small, of excellent and reputable citizens; and very greatly because it requiresthe nicest discrimination and care to draw the line up to which they might be encouraged and from whence they should be repelled. -It is' a question with which the Government of the country alone can deal, for the Government alone speaks and acts on behalf the entire people, and can alone enforce on behalf of the people, whatever resolution they had determined on, so far as the Chinese were concerned. On this score, we have already had occasion to animadvert on the thoughtless action of our own late County Council, who, in the exuberance of their zeal against the Chinese, took an action which was not warranted and which they cannot sustain.