“Good Earth” Shows Its Goodness

Northern Advocate, 4 January 1939, Page 8

“Good Earth” Shows Its Goodness

Thousands of Chinese have at last found the “Land of Gold” which brought them from the East in the good earth of British Columbia. There is a prosperous community in the valley of the Fraser River —a community that obtains its wealth, not from vast agricultural, mining, or engineering enterprise, but by extremely intensive cultivation of small plots of land. These Chinese are the market gardeners of British Columbia, states a report from Vancouver.

The report recalls that the original Orientals came from the Canton area in 1870, and were employed as coolie labour on railway construction work in Western Canada. On completion of the railway they were scattered through the country to engage in ,a score of new occupations.

Some who had accumulated capital entered business independently as restauranteurs or laundrymen. The majority, however, were dependent on the roughest sort of manual lab-

M,any were employed in the coal mines of Vancouver Island, and others worked inland.

Growth In Population.

By 1908 the Chinese population in the province had grown to formidable size, owing to unrestricted immigration, so a head-tax of £2O was imposed. Even this failed to stop the inrush of Orientals, whose enthusiasm had been fanned to fever heat by fabulous reports of the riches awaiting the fortunate prospector in Western Canadian goldfields.

So in 1908 the head-tax was increased to £IOO, and in this year came the first organised protest of white labour against Chinese competition. The demonstration was marked by riots and property destruction in Vancouver’s Chinatown.

In the next few years the antiChinese movement strengthened. In 1913 it culminated in the strike of all white coal miners on Vancouver island.

Shortly afterwards the British Columbia Government prohibited the employment of Chinese for underground work, and one means of livelihood was lost to Orientals.

They then turned to lumbering. But not long after the Minimum Wage Act was passed, and this gave white labour its opportunity to deliver the final blow.

Under the now law ,a mill operator had to pay his Chinese workers as

much as he paid his Canadian labour. It was not difficult to convince employers that, in view of the prevailing feeling, it would be well for them to dispense with- their Chinese employees entirely.

Thus the cycle was completed. From the soil the Cantonese had come. To the soil they were driven back. But they were driven to prosperity. It is estimated the Chinese now control up to 75 per cent of the vegetable produce business in British Columbia. Of the 20,000 of then- race resident in the province, 10,000 are engaged directly or indirectly in market gardening. The number of their farms is reckoned at 3500.

The success of their efforts is due to their endless toil and the scientific fertilisation of the soil. Coming from one of the most densely populated regions of the world, they have learnt not to waste a single square foot of the earth. The soil, generous as it is, is sadly overburdened. When one small field must support as many as three generations of a family at once, and, perhaps, an ox or cow as well, there is not much margin for waste. Thus, the Chinese farmer brought the intensive cultivation methods of the East to the sparsely settled West.

Four Harvests.

In Canada he will harvest from three to four successive crops from the same plot in a single season. Naturally, the strain on the soil is great, and without the liberal use of fertiliser such remarkable production would be impossible.

In the fields the men work with that deliberate economy of movement characteristic of the man of the soil the world over. They wear the huge Taimo, a wide-brimmed straw hat that has been worn by the farmers of China for ages. Stepping with care between the plots, stretching along the banks of the Fraser River for hundreds of acres, in unswerving symmetry, they tend the straight rows of every kind of green vegetable. Under the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, the categories of Chinese allowed admission to Canada are strictly limited, The ratio of Chinese men to women in British Columbia Is 300 to 1.

The Chinese will not erect a permanent dwelling or buy land which he may not expect to be the home of his descendants. So his house is a rough shack, his land held on a longterm lease from a white landlord.

So strong is the feeling of alienation that the bodies of Chinese who have died in Canada are sent back to China for burial.