CHINESE IMMIGRATION COMMITTEE.

15

H. -No. sa.

led to believe that there are millions of acres in Otago open for occupation ; that the climate is mild, employment easily obtained, wage high, and provisions cheap. If it were made known to them that the facts are just the reverse, their emigrating tendency would probably be cheeked at once. 6. Special taxation upon Chinese is undesirable in itself, for two reasons: it is unjust on the face of it, and it has not been found to succeed elsewhere. It has been abandoned in Australia, and there is nothing to show that it would answer the purpose in New Zealand. A tax upon rice would fall as heavily on the Europeans as on the Chinese, and the Chinese never eat rice when they can get pork or poultry. A capitation tax would neither drive them out of the country, nor prevent them from coming into it. If it were levied in the shape of a miner's right, the law would be evaded, just as it is now. Probably an inquiry at the Wardens' Offices would show that the many hundreds of Chinamen who have recently distributed themselves over the Otago Gold Fields, have altogether forgotten to provide themselves with a miner's right. W. J. Steward, Esq., I have, &c, Chairman, Chinese Immigration Committee. Gr. B. Babton.