19 DECEMBER 1903, Page 2

We publish in another column a letter from Mr. Creswell,.the

able and independent Johannesburg mine manager who lately resigned one of the best posts on the Rand because he differed so profoundly from his employers on the subject of importing Chinese labour. His contention is that the work can be done by white men, and that he made this contention good during an experiment which he conducted. Mr. Creswell's reiterated opinion, the minority Report, Mr. Monypenny's resignation, and the rapid growth of a public opinion in opposition to the importation of Chinese labour—all matters that have been made public since the appearance of our article of October 24th — make us feel that we were not well advised in adopting a tone of pessimism in regard to the possibility of any longer resisting the temporary use of Asiatic labour. We are glad to find that we were wrong, and that there was no need to adopt the position that the intro- duction of Chinese labour was inevitable, and that therefore the wisest thing was to obtain pledges that the resort to Chinese labour should only be temporary. Subsequent events have shown that the effort to prevent the Transvaal becoming even temporarily a yellow man's country need not be abandoned.