HOSTILITY TO CHINESE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16641, 25 January 1922, Page 11

HOSTILITY TO CHINESE

FRUIT SHOP CLOSED. Recently George Chew Lee, a. Chinese fruiterer, who has been in business in Christchurch for about twelve years, opened a shop at the corner of Colombo and Tuam Streets. Apparently some rival or rivals in business have taken exception to this for on recent Friday and Saturday evenings a. “sandwich” man has paraded up and down the street in front of the shop carrj ing a notice which casts a slur on the Chinese and urges white pcoplo not to deal with them.

Speaking to » “ Star ” reporter yesterday, a white man. who has known Choir Lee for a good many years, said he considered it was a scandalous attempt to drive u respectable citizen out of business. Chew Leo had been in New Zealand twenty-six years and in Christchurch about twelve years. He had paid a big price for his present shop arid was spending several hundreds of pounds on improvements. Chew Lee had a wife and family to support and be was just as entitled to make bis 'living as anyone else. With regal'd to tho “sandwich” man, on the front board there was a. notice calling attention to the large number of white fruiterers in Christchurch ; and asking “ Can’t you find one of them to supply your requirements.” Attention was also called to the alleged low standard of living adopted by the Chinese. The notice on tho board on the man’s back was, however, particularly offensive to respectable Chinese. There were the words “ Remember the Auckland Case” and then the drawing of a w hite woman and a Chinaman with his arms stretched out to her in an appealing attitude. Tho Auckland case referred to is evidently the on© in which three young women aged twenty eight, twenty one and eighteen years respectively were found on Chinese premises and were charged at the Auckland Police Court on December 9, 1921, with being idle and disorderly persons. About ten or eleven years ago, soon after Chew Lee had opened a fruit shop in Cashel Street, there was a hostile demonstration outside his premises and some stone throwing occurred.