SPEEDING THE CHINAMAN ! The Prime Minister's Market Gardening Scheme.

Free Lance, Volume VIII, Issue 398, 15 February 1908, Page 6

SPEEDING THE CHINAMAN ! The Prime Minister's Market Gardening Scheme.

IN his notable speech at Auckland last week, the Pume Mimstei made a very admnable suggestion w ith regard to criminals and market gaidenmg. The suggestion aiose really from the question of oui Aliens Restuction Act. Speaking on the question of Chinese immigration., Sir Joseph Ward said he did not think that in view of the education test provided for last session, many Chinamen would come into the country. In the vegetable growing tiade the Chinese had now practically excluded Europeans. What he would suggest v, as that there should be a State market gaiden in each of the four oenties, whe-ie should be utilised the married prisoners and youths in gaols, ci editing them with the value of then work, and devoting half their earnings to the maintenance of their wives or ielatives. * ♦ • Sir Joseph's scheme is a very admiiable one upon its two chief considerations In the first place, the Chinaman, must go. It may be safely said that the whole Dominion is fully deteimined upon that point We need immigrants. Oui Dominion is capable of carrying a greatly-mci eased population to that w Inch it sustains at present. But they must be of the right kind. Our own kith and km oversea are seeking livelihoods, and the reasoning people in these islands give them welcome when they come But there is no room m New Zealand for the Chinese who seek to enter. There are too many well-known leasons why those who seek to conic must be denied entry, and why those who are already here must be sent back to their own land again. The Prime Minister's scheme is going to give very effective aid to that work of excluding the heathen Chinee. Speaking generally, the white man has no tirniTTor growing vegetables. Here, as in some parts of Australia, if the Chinaman did not provide the greenstuffs for our table we should go without altogether. So far as our indutry in this particular is concerned we might all die of scurvy. So that in this respect the heathen Chinee has

been a benefactoi to the public. He is beginning to lealise it, and to improve his position by our weakness The Chinaman is keeping up the pi icg of fiuit moui city to-day, and making oven the Austialian giape as foieign as the New Zealand grape to the table of the uoikei But the scheme outlined by Sn Joseph Waid pi onuses to make easy the flay of the Orient's depaituie in so far as our vegetable products \\ ill be assured to us, and that, too, presumably, at a i ate lemoved fiom the subtle machinations of greedy salesmen. • » • There is another admirable consideration in the new Government scheme. It is that of removing the unfortunate criminals from the congested centres, where they aie often set to uncongenial and comparatively unprofitable tasks, and giving them useful and profitable employment — profitable to theii own health of mind and body, and also beneficial to the public. The provision for enabling them to earn and contribute to their own up-kee-p, and also during their imprisonment to earn and provide for the innocent victims of their own misdoings — their wives and children — is most pTaiseworthv. The protests of Trades Councils against prison labour cannot reasonably intrude themselves upon this commendable reform in the treatment of our prisoners. Sir Joseph may confidently urge forward his scheme, strong m the reflection that the whole Dominion will appraise and endorse it to the full.