THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9050, 10 May 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1888.

It is satisfactory to know that the first attack of what has been called in Australia the "yellow agony" has passed without any particularly ill results. The dreaded Chinamen have been landed in the South, and publio feeling —if the late ebullition can be dignified by such a title—is now in a state of convalescence. It is satisfactory that there was no resort to mob law, and the few agitators who had worked themselves up hysterically have not found themselves sustained by any noticoable backing, even among the turbulent classes, and they appear to have quietly glided again into obscurity. It is not by such methods that questions of national importance are settled, and it would seem that even the threat of intemperate action has raised the question in many minds as to whether the advent of Chinamen would be so very grave a calamity, and we do not hesitate to say that any prolonged exhibition of larrikin sentiments in relation to this, would divide the community into sharply-defined parties of those in favour of, as well as of those opposed to, Chinamen coming in moderate numbers into the colony. While fully convinced that it will bo to the advantage of our posterity to prevent this colony being made the home of any considerable number of Mongolians, We feel the force of much that is advanced by those whose thoughts have been moved by the recent assertion of mob law. They say that till Chinamen came it was impossible to get market-garden stuff at a reasonable pf ice in Auckland, that our market gardeners and farmers were either too lazy or too proud to do that which the Chinamen are doing, giving cheap food to our households, while earning a living for themselves; that soil from which European labour turns with scorn, is transferred into verdure and richness by the hand of the Chinaman, and that if the tens of thousands of barren acres between Birkenhead and the Wade, which in the presence only of Europeans would remain waste for ever, were dotted over with a few thousand Chinamen, they would not only be clothed in beauty, but give at east cheap food to the wives and children of those who even in our present circumstances profess to be unable to earn their bread; and that so far as sobriety and morals, and submission to law and order, are concerned, the Chinamen are more respectable than a

considerable section of our own highlyFavoured and much-belauded Europeans. This is what people say, angered no doubt by the blustering threats and violence of a mob who compare unfavourably with the Chinamen whom they would repel with hoots and mud and oystershells. And then, as for the opium-smok-ing and its concomitants, those people ask who is it that forced opium-smoking on the Chinamen at the point of the bayonet? It was Christian England, they say, that self-complacent and self-righteous nation, which professes fco be guided in its policy by an open Bible, teaching us to do to others as we would that they should do unto us ; it was we that for our own selfish gains and for the maintenance of the revenues of our Indian Empire, compelled the heathen Chinee to admit to his teeming millions that most demoralising and fatal of all drugs with which a people can be debased ; and it is asked what right have we to complain of the opium-smoking habits of the Chinese when, in defiance of all law and righteousness, we made them so by our peculiar style of international equity. This is the kind of thought that supervenes on reflection over the senseless bluster that has been indulged about the recent invasion ; and people, irritated by it, ask why should sensible men be carried away by insane ravings of this kind, and by the babble of weak-kneed politicians, who, because they are dependent on hustings' votes, durst not indulge the luxury o£ having any souls of their own, and merely pander to the passions of the mob. And such reflections will always supervene if this question is kept on the low level of a mere consideration oi the effects of Chinese competition with labour in the fields of industry. But, on the higher plane of national character, and the future greatness of New Zealand, all colonists may join hands in endeavouring that our island colony should be preserved as a sanctuary for Anglo-Saxon civilisation, unmixed with the alien Oriental elements with which which these seas are unquestionably threatened. It is greatly to be regretted that Sir George Grey has not been afforded an opportunity for expressing his views on this great question at a public meeting ; foi no other in these colonies has evei shown such prescience in the past, and no other could give us such a reliable forecast of what is coming in the future. But we know sufficient of his views tc say that he holds that New Zealand can and ought to be preserved from this threatened invasion, but that the continental colonies of Australia cannot be so protected; not from lack of political freedom to act, but because of the irresistible force of circumstances. He holds that New Zealand, in common with the other colonies, has a chartei of rights in her Constitution undei which she is empowered to legislate in every way " for the peace, order, and good government" ol the colony, and that this extends sc far as to entitle her to make laws for the absolute exclusion of the Chinese on the grounds that their presence would be detrimental to the "peace, order, and good Government" of the country, and that no treaty with China, or any other Power, can be regarded as preventing the people of this colony from regulating the internal government and affairs of the country by legislation ; that, whatever exception might be taken by China to the harsh or exceptional treatment of Chinamen residing within the colony, there can be no interference with the right of the colony to prohibit their entrance intc the country. He holds that it is the duty of the people of the colony tc absolutely prevent the accession of any considerable Mongolian immigration : that this colony from its insular position and its powers, both political and material, is able to secure such isolation ; and that in view of what seems to be inevitable in Australia and in the many islands of the Pacific, the people of New Zealand, in justice to their posterity, should steadfastly resolve to keep these islands for European settlement and Anglo-Saxon institutions.

For he holds that whatever may be the present desire, and however large the political powers of the continental colonies of Australia may be, that country as well as many islands of the Pacific will be swarmed over by the millions of Mongolians now moving under the impulse of an emigration spirit. He believes that the vast territory of tropical Australia, being unfitted for European industrial settlement, and being entirely suited to the requirements of the Chinese, will not bo left a waste, but with its teeming fertility and mineral wealth, will become the home of a dense population of Chinese settlers ; that not only in the nature of things would they swarm in there, but that, sooner or later, Europeans will insist themselves on Chinamen being admitted to cultivate and improve their vast and valuable properties in tropical Australia; that these Chinese immigrants will not confine themselves to tropical Australia, but will stream southward among all the cities, towns, and settled districts of the south ; and it was because of the labour relations which he saw naturally arising in the future out of this universal presence of an inferior labouring race in Australia that he strenuously re-1 sisted the intention of having New Zealand involved with the Australian colonies and their fates and fortunes by federation. Such is the view held on the future of the Chinese question by the most far-seeing statesman that has ever been in these colonies, and though the agitation of the past few days mayhave the effect of producing a sort of reactionary feeling with many in favour of the Chinese, there can be little doubt that, in the interest of the future of this colony, and to save it to AngloSaxon settlement and institutions, it will be the duty of the Legislature to pass such enactments as may effectually save New Zealand from such a threatened fate.