SLAVERY UNDER ANOTHER NAME.

Tuapeka Times, Issue 1491, 19 September 1888, Page 5

SLAVERY UNDER ANOTHER NAME.

The system of the Chinese emigration is a system of complete slavery, It in con* ducted by six companies aa wealthy as they are powerful. Each company is protected by ' the Chinese Government. Their home agencies are in Canton and Hong Kong. They are represented all through the interior of China by coolie traders. These agents, as the Hon. C. E. De Long, late Minister to China, reported to our Government find, for example, a family of old people with sons and daughters. As is common 6nough, the poor creatures have had a constant trouble to keep body and Boai together. The trader offers to buy the services of a son or a daughter, agreeing to give to the old people the sum of money down, and stipulating to feed and clothe the boy or girl, and to return him or her, dead or alive, to the parents in China, after the term of service has expired. In consideration for this, the young man or woman signs a contract which is absolutely frightful in its conditions. He or she agrees to give faithful service to his or her master for a term of 6, 8, or 10 years, as the case may be, and, for a guarantee of faithful service, father, mother, brother and sister are mortgaged with a th msand penalties in case the service is not properly performed. The result is that the coolie is bound body and soul, and hence, when the inspeotor asks, " Are you leaving China of your own free will ?" the answer is, "I am." And when called upon to testify on the spot, he answers just as may please his master. The men, toiling day after day in a strange land, and simply paying a debt to keep their fathers and mothers from starving. Mr Thomas J. Vivian published a financial view of these Chinese companies, which showed that they received from the Celestials in America a yearly stipend in proportion to the money they earned, and . that the result presented a vast profit to the emigration contractors. Of the six companies the Sam Youp is the most powerful organization and the most enterprizing. Sam Youp men may not only be found in California, but in the other States and territories, from Tuscan to Puget Sound, and from San Francisco to Massachusetts and New York. " Sam Youp lays New railroads in the Southern countries, hews timber in the North, makes cigars at Sacramento and vraatiera in Boston. Sana Youp is übiquitous and all-powerful ; paternal in the care of its members, and lynx-like in the watchfulness of its own interests." Then, too, the Chinaman owea no loyalty to anyone outside the company. He has to pay taxes to the "Red-haired Devils," who imprison thieves and murderers; but he owes them no further obedience, and, while all the money he earns goes back to China, he remains to feed on the stranger, and cheapens labour to such an extent as to keep the whites out of their natural quarters of colonisation. This is the trouble the Washington Government has been dealing with over some years of legislation, and the China question in America is on all fours with the China question in the British colonies. — "Sunday Times."