The Chinese Question.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue II, 14 July 1900, Page 81

The Chinese Question.

Living’ in the country districts one is apt to get behind in the news of the day; therefore I do not know if the following reflections on the Chinese question have occurred to any of your staff or correspondents. I must confess to a slight feeling of sympathy with the Chinese. However mistaken or wrong their-ideas may 'be, the history of the secret society, of the Boxers proves them to be acting from motives of patriotism, or what passes in the Chinese mind for patriotism. Their patriotism in this case takes the form oT hatred of the foreigners, their rallying cry being apparently, “China for the Chinese.’ ’ This may- be a wrong and narrow-minded form of patriotism, but. let us remember that the cry of Australia for the Australians, America for the Americans, and similar political shibboleths, have been raised among the white nations. In New Zealand itself, we often hear the remark: "Let us keep the money in the country,” which is in effect- the same cry. The Boers, too, are fighting ostensibly for the same principle. But their case is on a very different footing to the Chinese. They invited the Uitlander to develop the country for them; they obtained their semi-inde-pendence on a distinct understanding of equal political rights to all whites; and they, or their leaders, were engaged in a vast conspiracy to oust another white nation out of her colonies and seize them for themselves. Besides which they were not only not the aboriginal inhabitants of the country (like the Chinese), but treated the aborigines in a most cruel and despotic manner.

Now, China, unlike the. Boer, has never invited the foreigner; indeed, has always fiercely resented his intrusion, and it has only been by means of various wars waged by England, France, and America that she has

reluctantly opened a few ports—Treaty ports as they are called. Japan at first, as we all know, pursued the same course as China, but now she is rapidly becoming attached to Western ideas, and entering into a serious and successful competition with Western nations, both commercially and politically. There are, indeed, many statesmen who think it would have been better to have left Japan to herself from the first. So, with China, many doubted the wisdom of the Chinese wars; some condemned them on moral grounds, opium being the article principally imported into China at first. Another reflection that strikes one, is the inconsistency, not to say cant, of Europe and America’s dealings with Chino. In these colonies we levy a poll-tax on Chinamen, in order to stop them coming. We do not want them; and yet we send out a lot of well-meaning missionaries to get them into heaven. If they are objectionable in this life, I should think they would be equally objectionable in the next; more especially, as is well-known in the colonies at least (1 cannot speak of China), the average Christian Chinaman is a bigger rogue than the heathen Chinaman. 1 only onee knew a decent Chinese Christian. He was a digger in the South island, and lie was what, in digger parlance, is known as a- “real white man.” He told me onee he was a thorough Christian white man. "Me get drunk, all the same as white Christian.” His observation of his fellow Christians had apparently led him to look upon intoxication as one of the rites of orthodox Christianity.

Again, we must admit. 1 think, that a good deal of cant is talked about Chinese vices. One sometimes even hears gambling quoted against them, which, purely, is rather like the kettle calling the pot black. One woultl think, from the way some people speak, that the great American, European and Colonial towns were quite free of vice, save where Chinamen collect. That they have many vices, and are often dirty in their homes and habits let us grant; so are many white inhabitants of the slums. Can’t is always objectionable, and if we admit that if we have a racial antipathy to Chinese, which we all have, and which makes the idea of a white girl’s marriage to a Chinaman, for instance, altogether repel la nt to our ideas, and also if we further admit that we object to the Chinese getting a monopoly of certain trades, and making money in our lands, which they save and finally take away with them to < hina, we shall have sufficient reasons for taxing- them without cant. Yet while we in the colonies and America levy a poll-tax on Chinamen, here are the great Powers, including Great Britain and America, fighting the Chinese because they object to foreigners in their country, in fact, the Powers say to the Chinese, you must admit white men freely to your country, but you must not emigrate to ours: at least, this is the case as regards Great Britain’s Australian colonies and America, and there is doubt that France ami Germany will take the same view.

Ignorant, narrow-minded and cruel though the Chinese may be, one cannot help having a little’sympathy for them in their present war. They arc fighting for their country against foreigners who. to their ‘min’d, no

doubt, are bent on taking their country, forcing a religion on them they neither comprehend nor want, overthrowing their ancient, worship. The Chinese proper, it is true, hate their Manchurian rulers, hut both rulers and ruled would far sooner fight out. their own battle without foreign intervention. China must, of course, come under Western civilisation for their own ultimate benefit, us Russia, England, and France rule their Asiatic subjects despotically, but in the main kindly mid justly;’ but the Chinese may surely be excused if they fail to see at present the benefits they will eventually receive under foreign rule. And also we may doubt ourselves if the task of subduing and civilising (to our standard) 100,000,000 frugal, cunning Chinamen, possessed of fighting and commercial instincts, is not too high a price to pay for the commercial advantages to be derived therefrom, to say nothing of the constant risks of European jealousies and complications. S.C.R.. Whak.’tpirau, Kai para.