THE Mount Ida Chronicle AND St. Bathans Weekly News. SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1879. THE CHINESE QUESTION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 496, 18 January 1879, Page 2

THE Mount Ida Chronicle AND St. Bathans Weekly News. SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1879. THE CHINESE QUESTION.

Thebe 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. It commenced as a mere dispute between employers and employed, but that something more than a mere industrial difference was at the bottom ot 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 ot having a strong and' justifiable cause for their complaints or a substantial reason for their demands, are much more apt to be temperate arid 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 ailquite" withiu 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 A ustralian journal properly and wisely points out, baß 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 f avcrable 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 which has been pointed out by so many journals of late that it is unnecessary for us to do so now. Ingreaternumbers they become a source of perennial irritation and annoyance to European fellow laborers ; while when they arrive at that Btage that they can be viewed as a considerable proportional element in the copulation, a contest of raceß 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 .say 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 frund themselves permanently supplanted by Chinese on their own waters.

Looking then to the 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 be 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 effectively with it when the time arrives —if it ever does arive—that thev are called upon-to. deal.with.

it. Tt 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 requires the nicest discrimination and care todraw the line up to which they mightbe 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 acta on behalf the entire people, and can alone enforce on behalf 'of the people- whatever resolution, they had determined; on, eo far as the Chinese were' concerned. On this score, we have al-. ready had occasion to unimadvert on the thoughtless action of our own late County Council/who, in the exuberance of their zeal against the Chinese,took,an action which wa,s not warranted and which they cannot sustain.