The Chinese Boycott.

Northland Age, Volume 2, Issue 49, 10 July 1906, Page 4

The Chinese Boycott.

John Chinaman is apparently awaking from his long trance. He is mightily offended at the insult the poll-tax offers to his dignity, and his latest method of showing his resentment is found in the determination expressed to boycott the Christchurch Exhibition. At one time the guileless heathen resorted to cruder tactics, and his thirst for retaliation seemed to be satiated by the slaughter of a missionary or two. He used to get little satisfaction out of this, however, and eventually recognised that the most effective means to hurt the haughtywhite was to hurt him through his joss, the great god Gold. Hence we tieard of the boycott of America, and now we read that “ The New Zealand Exhibition is to have no official support from China.” The representative who visited the merchants and officials in Pekin, Shanghai and Hong-Kong, was a Mr. Gow, and he appears to have been greatly impressed by the better class of Chink, who he says is an educated, thinking lump of anatomy, and “just such people as he wanted to visit New Zealand." Just so. We do feel thankful at times, and when we contemplate the utterings of these champions of the almond-eyed Celestial, we feel thankful that we have a polltax and that Ah Gow is not omnipotent. Of course, the educated Chinaman may be a good fellow —in his place, which means that he is alright so long as we can trade with him to advantage, without endangering our racial customs and instincts. Otherwise he would be to us a greater menace than the bubonic plague, which we endeavour so strictly to keep from our shores. A big epidemic of the latter might reduce our population considerably, but the advent of the Chow —at least as a free agent —would mean a deterioration of our peopjp morally and physically, the raising of

a populace of half-breeds, and the eventual extinction of the nation. These brief sentiments may sound rather tall, and be taken by some as a reflection upon the white races—a belief in their inferiority—but are we stronger or superior to the yellow ? W id' 4 r

races :e pride ourselves we are so, and we may be so, but we have never had the chance to make the test, and it is to be sincerely hoped we never have to. We candidly regard the Chinese as an evil, and, in close 'contact in numbers with the white, as much to be dreaded as the insidious cancer which we profess to have known for many years, and the ravages of which we cannot yet successfully contend with,