ANTI-CHINESE AGITATION IN SOUTH AFRICA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5802, 20 January 1906, Page 10

ANTI-CHINESE AGITATION IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Mr F. H. P. Crosswalk for several years one of tho lending mining engineers on the Rand, addressed a crowded meeting on the Chinese Labour question at Potchcfstroom on Wednesday | evening, October 4. Dr Mortimer was in the chair, and others present included Sir Soraem Vino. The mooting by an overwhelming majority adopted a resolution declaring 1 that Chinese Labour is not only unj necessary but .seriously harmful to the i best interests of the community. | Mr Orftsswell Eiiid : —Sir Joseph Farrar when ho was down hero a few weeks ago told you that if you insisted on the uooliee being repatriated the grass would grow in your streets. Possibly the few blades of grass I noticed ns I came through your town are your punial ment for over daring to question Sir George Farrar's political sagacity! Well, after all, 'hose of ns who have | carefully followed the course of this Chine-- agitation have become quite familiar with the system of trying to frighten us with the awful things which would happen if wc did not think with them, and of cajoling us with promises of whnt good times wc would all "have if wo did think with them, j FAMILIAR THREATS. To judge of the truth of what they say to-day, let ns take the similar things they told us two years ngo. First, let us take that throat of industrial stagnation and paralysis which they 'dinned ip‘o our oars in 1903; the equivalent then of the grass-grown streets you are told to look forward to in 1900. They told us then that unless the country consented to their getting Chinese, many mines would have to stop, and that, at all events, no more stamps would bo enabled to drop, and no new enterprise undertaken. What evidence was there of this? Does any man there think that, oven long-suffering though the shareholders in the mines are. these shareholders would not make an effective protest against their mine;', being stopped when they were working at a profit? The next shape the “bogey” took wan that no more stamps would bo dropped:— Give us Chinese, they said, and wc will drop more stamps. Refuse ns Chinese, and, much as wo desire to do it, wo cannot increase the number of stamps now dropping, and increase the output of gold. We would like to—wo want to-—and we shall all be mined if wo don't, but wo can't unless you give us Chinese. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for us now, actions count for more than words. The records show that all the time they were trying to make our flesh creep by the exhibition of this “bogey” of stagnation and ruin, their actions wore giving the lie to their words.

The Minps Department of the Government issue each month most admirable statistical reports relating to the mines, and I commend these to all of those who take an interest in this subject. Vou trill find from these that in June 1903 when they were frightening us by those Tiieturos of stagnation—there were 3500 stamps at work on the_ Band, and that on these producing mines 47,250 natives were employed. Not a single Chinaman arrived till the following Juno, hut you won’t find much ; sign of stagnation. 1 Vou will find instead that they kept steadily increasing the stamps at work without Chinese, that they kept on getting in more natives, and that while in Juno 1903 they were using 1250 natives for every 100 stamps at work, they managed from then till June 1904 to pur on an extra 100 stamps (without waiting for any Chinese, mark you), for ovory 1035 natives they added to the labour on the producing mines, and that by Juno 1901 they had added 12.55 stamps to the stamps at work, making at that date 4755 stamps in operation, j You will find that, as you would ex- | poet-, necessity was teaching them, and ; they wore learning to run 100 stamps with fewer natives. How does this square with what they wore telling us that, unless they got Chinese they could drop no more stamps, and that the industry would be paralysed? So "much for stagnation of the industry. But, in answer to this, they will now tell you that this just carried them on to the stagnation-point—that but for the heaven-sent arrival of Chinese they would have had to ston at their 1755 stamps, or, at all events, that Chinese have enabled th.-m to got mere- stamps going very much more quickly than they would have been able ;o do without Chinese. Again, gentlemen, he very wary how you accept this nr similar assert ton*. book at the records! What do they show? Thev show tint between June 1901 and th« end of last Augu.-t—the last month for which stuli-tics are available —the number of natives on the producing mines of the Band had increased In IttJa as they did from June 1903 to month. j J)n<»> any man here for a minute really ' clievo that, if no Chinese had come

| hero at all. the gentlemen controlling I the mines would not have done exactly the same from June 1904 to August 190,5 as they did from Juno 11X13 to j Juno 1904? i From the Government statistics you I will find that from June 1903, right 1 through the period-of the so-called labour shortage, the mines which were : poducing were giving employment to about 220 white men for every 100 | stamps they had to work. From Juno. 1 1903 to October 1904. for every addition--1 al 100 stamps which were got (o work tin o producing mines required and gave employment to 2-0 white men. ' Then the effect iff Chinese began to 'bo felt. In the following live months, for each extra 100 stamps they got to work they required and gave employrn< at to 142 white men only, that i‘; eighty fewer than Ixifojv. In the suocooding live months, which brings us to tho end of August last, for every extra 100 stamps they got to work diet required and gave employment to only seventy-nine white men. Rotnomlier in considering the figures 1 have given you that had {liiitet» not. eomo an much work would he done to day as is being done, but that instead of 45,000 Chinese being employed, « very much larger nil in tier of wit ito men would have been employed—skilled and ■ unskilled—and without doubt more extra skilled white men than are supervising cooties. Via road in tho Hand Aid Association report complaints of tho number of handy-mon—that is, of men ready to da any kind of work—who are continually coming to tho Rand to starve, and invoking tho authorities to do what they can to discourage immigration.

I _ Mow, isn’t it a monstroti* thing that, in a land crying aloud for labour an*i population, men horn in thin country, and men front our own Motherland, who come hone in march of honest work, workmen of our men flesh ana blood, (should lie told to “Voetr.uk!” ? “We don’t want you ; wo only want Chinese.” Which system is IxsttorP Which is moro likely to afford prosperity to us nil, and to afford work for the numbers of jioor men anxious to earn their livelihood and bo beholden to no one? The system which gave employment: to eomo 200 white men for every 100 stamps fit work—gave employment to there men, not out of charity, but because they needed them—or this Chinese importation system which on one mine alone meant the getting rid of between 200 and 300 men? This system which wo havo soon from the general figures moans a continually diminishing number of white men being employed for fhu stamps at work—means eighty white men finding employment for each additional K» stamps, instead of 220? Which, again, is likely to add'to the general prosperityP Arc there Chincsn going to add to the consuming power of the industrial centre—the consuming power on which the prosperity of the agricultural districts is dependent ? Or will tlio much larger number of white men who will find employment and nettle down hero when you repatriate the Chinese add more to that consuming power? It is perfectly obvious which ooureo is in the true intercut of iho country. Wo have boon told nd nauseam that this is a purely economic question; by which our friends apparently mean n question the arguments on both sides of which are capable of being expressed in pounds, shillings, and pence, and a balance struck showing which is rigid. liven on this, the lowest ground, wo ace they are hopelessly in the wrong. But it is a question on which one lux only to think for a minute to realise that it goes much deeper than this, that it goes right to the root of the whole range of social ideas which we European races have developed: ideas which form tho basis upon which our whole social system is built. It is a question as between building this country up .as what will be, in the eseonco, a slave State, and building it up as it free white country.