SHALL WE ADMIT THE CHINESE ?
[ Communicated.']
Few things arc more pleasant, and few, certainly, less inconvenient than to glide along with the tide. We do not worry ourselves with the future, foe the present is so rich with enjoyment that we care not to go beyond it. Our cup is full to overilowing, and we do not wish to think of a time when it may require replenishing.
As it is with individuals, so is it with States. The Otago of the past — feeble, struggling, and scarce known beyond its boundary — is vastly different from the Otago of the present, tho centre of attraction to neighbouring provinces, and even to the gold-spangled Colony of Victoria ; producing from its surface diggings in a week as much as was annually realised from all sources but a few years since. We might fearlessly compare the comfort and happiness we then enjoyed with what is now our portion, and, with htill more confidence, with what may be in store for us if we are content to spread the canvas to the breeze and go whither the winds may convey us.
We do not intend to examine the question whether it was wise, by the Miners' Electoral Ordinance to admit into the electoral body every one who, three months before the time of the annual registry, should pay the State £1 for the privilege of extracting the precious metals ; we acknowledge at once the law as it stands, by which a transfer is made of tho electoral franchise from a class having a permanent interest in the Province, to another class which pays a mere retaining fee, and which, composed of strangers from all lands, will have the power of electing the chief civil authority, and perhaps of materially influencing the Legislative Council. Our present object is different ;itis to inquire whether it is wise to admit, without any check, the hordes of Chinese which inundated Victoria, and will leave an abiding mark upon its golden age. There are those whom the very idea of restriction would throw into paroxysms of generous indignation, who, advocating Free-trade in all its length and breadth, would scout at the most remote allusion to the expediency of allowing any class to enjoy a monopoly. The world is a commonage, say they, where every human being has an inherent right of participation. We may admire the exalted benevolence which characterizes tho sentiment, but we doubt its justice and expediency.
Let us take a practical view of our case ; for these high-flown theories are too luscious to be freely indulged in. What is our position ? Cramped by the dense population of the mother country, and thwarted in every attempt to ameliorate our condition, we left the abode of our fathers to hew for ourselves, amid dangers and discomforts in a strange and distant land, the home we had long pictured- in imagination. There was one thing we would not leave behind — for without it a Briton could not breathe— our liberties were as household gods, without which Paradise would be a desert. The home we have obtained is in the neighbourhood of a nation greedy of gold, which numbers millions to our hundreds, and whose inhabitants, as in Victoria, are ready to inundate us. By the Gold Fields Act of 1858, each miner of the age of 21, duly registered, an I holding a miner's light, for which the sum of £1 is paid, is entitled to vote. By the Electoral Ordinance, unless he were naturalised, he would not, we believe, though holding such a right, be entitled to vote ; but naturalisation is merely a matter of money, and we do not see how the advocates for equal rights to all men could deny the Chinese this privilege, eyen if it were not a duty, oa their own principles, rather to facilitate its possession. We thus arrive at the conclusion that it may be a measure of prudential policy to guard our liberties, and that a band of aliens in religion, character, and habits should not assume a position in the constituency, which, judiciously used,' might seriously jeopardise our prospects as a thorough British Colony. Let us not blink the question, nor obscure it by sophistry. Are we prepared to admit as fellow-citizens, possessing equal rights, and enjoying equal privileges, the subjects of the Celestial Empire, or, were they near enough, the Bosch men of Southern Africa ? Tnere are other considerations of great importance which we cannot now more than glance at. When gold, unless in the shape of sovereigns, and those few in number, was unknown to us, the disparity between the sexes was a subject of serious moment, but the difficulties siuce then have vastly increased by an accession of some 4000 males. Are we prepared still further to •increase that fearful disparity by an unrestricted admission of a race which systematically leaves their females behind ?
We would again ask, whether it is a matter of indifferenco to us that the British labouring ciaS"
ses, whom it is our special mission to benefit, and whom we have invited, nay, almost seduced, to rend asunder all the associations of country and kin, by the assurance that there is plenty of land to be bought at reasonable rates, and a sufficient demancTfor labour, of a remunerative kind, wherewith to buy it, whether, we would ask, we care not that they should be swamped, their hopes blighted, and their prospects destroyed by an inundation of Chinese ? Better, far better for us to resume, if it were possible, pur old jog-trot pace— safe though not very dazzling — than retain our present preeminence. We willingly allow that the rate of wages is high — that its reduction would greatly benefit the producing classes and the labourers themselves ; but we desire its reduction to its natural level, where capital and labour are equally benefited, not by the extreme measure of an importation- of inferior population, but by a larger immigration of congenial classes from our native land. Dearly as we love the liberty we enjoy, and thorough as is our advocacy of oppressed nationalities, we do not feel called upon to hazard what our forefathers gained with so much toil and danger, by sharing our patrimony with those who lightly esteem what we so highly reverence, and who, if the North island instead of the Middle were the scene in question, would come into hostile collision with the Maories, whom by treaty we are uound'to regard as British subjects and fellow-citizens. We may use the language of Brutus when we contrast our love of liberty generally with our love of our privileges as freedmen, and say, '* Not that I love Caesar less, but that I love Rome more."
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Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 512, 21 September 1861, Page 5
Word Count
1,122SHALL WE ADMIT THE CHINESE ? Otago Witness, Issue 512, 21 September 1861, Page 5
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