CHINESE FRUITERERS NOT THE DIRTIEST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17829, 24 April 1926, Page 8

CHINESE FRUITERERS NOT THE DIRTIEST.

To the Editor. Sir, —The remarks of your correspondent “White New Zealand” re the Chinese fruit shops and Chinese are very uncalled for. I consider when we let them into our countries, the least that we can do is it to treat them as we would like to be treated ourselves. Now “White New Zealand” must know there are thousands of white people in China making their living, and some making fortunes in business and trading. “White New Zealand” says Chinamen are forced to pay the highest rents and pay the dearest for their goods. This is hardly British fair play. For my part I have always found the Chinese people very civil and obliging, and I consider their goods are as clean as any white fruit shop people, and no Chinese back yard could be dirtier than theirs were or as half as smelly. One other thing I admire about Chinese is that they mind their own business, and are not eternally poking their noses into other people’s affairs and running them down. I lived next to a vegetable garden kept by Chinese in Spreydon, and sometimes there were five or six Chinamen w r orking in the gardens. They were very hard working and did everything in a good method, and I must say that I never, all the years they lived near us, had any occasion to consider them dirty. I found them extremely honest, and the vegetables they grew were a credit to them. “White New Zealand” says he has seen them working hard on Sundays, and all hours of the night. Well I know very respectable white people who work in their gardens all day Sunday, and I consider that honest work is better than spending their hours gambling and drinking, as too many do who are not Chinese. Mostly all Chinese people are very artistic, and are noted for the beautiful fancy things they make, and are Very fond of flowers and birds, and as “White New Zealand” says China is overcrowded and unhealthy, all the more reason why they leave China, and come to a country where they have more room, and work under more healthy conditions. When God made the coloured people He did not intend that they should be looked down upon. We read in the Bible God made man in His own image and likeness, to love Him in this world, and be happy with Him forever in the next. I am, etc., LIVE AND LET LIVE.