"FINEST PEOPLE IN EAST”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18192, 13 September 1933, Page 3

"FINEST PEOPLE IN EAST”

THE CHINESE DEFENDED BETTER TREATMENT URGED “Australia and New Zealand, who are neighbors to China, are handicapped in neighborly relations not only by the aggressive diplomacy of the Motherland, but also by their own stupid and discriminatory laws and by their thoughtless treatment of the Chinese in their midst,” said Mr. J. El. Strachan during an address to the Canterbury Progress League on “Trade With The East.”

“Scores of instances might be given,” he continued. “I shall quote one. A Chinese merchant in a large way in Melbourne lifted his business from Australia altogether because he was compelled to register his fingerprints oas if lie were a criminal. “We in New Zealand insult the Chinese and kick up a fuss about a few of them playing fan-tan, and bring them before the ‘beak.’ We talk about Chinese ‘dens’—they are always ‘dens. The Chinese are made out to be the scum of the earth. “The Chinese see through all this and the articles featured in the newspapers. They see through our hypocrisy and know all about our totalisators arid our bridge parties. “All these incidents go back to China and help to mould public opinion. It we are to establish goodwill relationship with China, we must begin by thinking independently, clearing the Statute Book, of offensive and insulting discriminatory laws, and begin to treat the Chinese as wc expect them to treat us. The Chinese are the finest people iri the East and it is time we began to understand them.”