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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9095, 2 July 1888, Page 4

In our telegrams we are informed that the Postmaster-General of New South Wales has informed the. Oceanic Shipping Company that the employment of Chinese on their mail steamers might seriously militate against a renewal of the San Francisco mail service. This is done no doubt under the pressure of that disorderly force which has already driven the Government of New South Wales into the independent course which they have taken in respect of the Chinese question, and to recede from which, if not with dignity at least without humiliation, is at present tasking the efforts of the Administration in that colony. Had it not been for the reckless Eroceduro of that Government and egislature—procedure which has been condemned throughout all the colonies —the solution of the difficulty with the Chinese Government could have been easily arrived at ; iu fact, the difficulty could hardly be said to have existed at all. The violence evinced then in the treatment of the question lias given, as is well-known, just offence to the Court of China, whose susceptibilities to insult having been aroused will prolw,bly necessitate a different settlement of the question from that which might otherwise have been attained. That fact should have been sufficient to have taught the Government of the colony the imprudence of allowing itself to be driven by the demands of a disorderly rabble ; but this latest intimation shows that_ the influence i.s still paramount in Sydney. Tt so happens that the position of the question of the continuance of the San Francisco service is such that an intimation of such a nature is likely to carry considerable weight ; because the same unscrupulous influence which drove some thirty thousand people to boisterously parade in a threatening fashion through Sydney streets headed by members of the City Council and even members of Parliament, and to invade the House of Parliament itself, could without doubt be brought to bear in Parliament, and _ turn the balance in a critical division ; and so a question affecting the interest not only of

New South Wales, but of this colony of New Zealand, is made contingent on the will of a Sydney mob. It is of course a fairly debateable question whether Chinese should or should not be employed in vessels sailing across tha Pacific and touching in their course ■and at their termini at places where European labour claims a monopoly of employment. That, we say, may be a fairly debateable question ; but to find a Government which is supposed to represent and to conserve the interests of all classes, using its influence in this way, to coerce a foreign trading company into submission to the dictation of a disorderly and perfectly lawless mob, is an incident calculated to brinij popular and representative government into ridicule and contempt.