CHINESE AND AMERICANS.
IN 1849, Carlyle wrote of the " Nigger Question " that it was louder than it was big, and to-day probably most. Englishmen whose attention has been called to the Chinese. in America would make the same remark about the " Chinese
Question," believing that it is to be settled by the common- places about demand and supply. Any one, however, who has faced the fire of both parties in the case, who has been con- vinced by one, converted by the other, reconverted back to his first view, and who has finally spent some time in the conclu- sion that, like another American puzzle with which we have lately been bored, the Chinese Question is, after all, insoluble,— is certain that it is bigger than it is loud, and is confident that the principles upon which it is to be settled have not yet become common-place.
So far as the question has been matter for legislation, the facts may be briefly stated. Not long ago, a Bill passed both Houses prohibiting, after a certain interval, the immigration of Chinese into the United States for twenty years, a few ex- ceptions being made in favour of Government officials, students, &c., duly provided with passports. This Bill was vetoed by President Arthur, on the ground that twenty years was not within the limits of the word "reasonable," as applied to the regulation or suspension of the coming or residence of Chinese labourers, occurring in the treaty with China. To become law, the Bill would have had to be passed " over the Presi- dent's veto,"—a rare measure. A second Bill, reducing the prohibitive period to ten years and amending the passport regulations, passed both Houses, and has just received the. President's signature. Public opinion in the United States. was about equally divided, the Western States favouring the Bill, the Eastern States opposing it.
First., now, what is the case against the Chinaman ? Given very briefly, it is as follows :—Chinese labourers are poured into the country by speculators, who make so much per head ; they do not immigrate, they are imported ; they are practically slaves, bound in many ways while in America, and unable to return without the permission of the mysterious " Six Com- panies." Their ability to thrive where other people would die of starvation enables them to underbid all white labourers, thus temporarily to lower the rate of wages to starvation- point, and finally to drive all other labour from the field. When a Chinaman has accumulated the few hundreds of dollars sufficient to make him a magnate in China, he leaves America, and thus large sums disappear which would other- wise be employed in the country,—a difference like that between labour for productive and labour for unpro- ductive consumption. To secure his competence the coolie will engage in any labour, good or bad. Large numbers of them are diseased ; no women come with them, or the few who are brought are concealed, and form one of the worst features of the case. All the evils of opium-eating are present, and "hells" of every description spring up where the Chinese congregate. Owing to the inveterate race- prejudice and reticent habits of the Chinese, the police are unable to gain information or to track crime ; a periodical, in- discriminate raid is almost the only form of police supervision. They are on an entirely different footing from all other immi- grants, for they take no interest in the country, share none of its ideas and have no ambition to do so, persistently refuse all naturalisation, and even make arrangements to ensure their burial in China, should they die in America, thus—as a " spread-eagle " orator recently said in Congress—" refusing a grave in the land of liberty." And, finally, there is no limit to their coming. As soon as it becomes known in China that a Chinese fortune can be accumulated in a few years in the United States—and the speculators who make the profits will work hard to diffuse this information—the number of coolies will be enormously increased, and from the untold millions of China, " Mongolian hordes " will overflow into California, first taking possession of a quarter of a city, then of a city, then of a State, sweeping all before them. When the white labourers are at length all crowded out, and China- man competes with Chinaman, the evil elements of Chinese civilisation will soon arise. Thus, not a certain class of labour, not a section of the country, but the life of the Republic itself,
is threatened. China could send over enough of her subjects to do all this, without making any appreciable in- roads upon her population. The United States can resist the bad elements flowing into it at present, because these are swallowed up in the good population ; but what is the fusion that will result when the scale is turned ? Simply the extinc- tion of American civilisation. All this is what the anti- Chinese agitator claims, and it must be admitted that he has made out a strong case.
Now, for the defence. In the first place, the outcry has been raised against Chinese labour, not because it is cheap, but because it is good. The lazy, drunken Irishman of the "Sand Lots," who wants by any shift to earn enough in a day to keep him idle for a week, and who is ready to fling up his hat for anybody for a drink, or to vote on any side for a dollar, has naturally a cordial hatred for the quiet, inoffensive China- man, who goes about his business, only anxious to work all the time, and who is profoundly indifferent to every political war- cry. It is the very men who were themselves immigrants a few months before who now raise the cry, " The Chinese must go !" In the second place, the talk about " Mongolian hordes " is pure nonsense ; it is positively stated that the Chinese come from one small district only—Canton—that there are not more than 100,000 of them in California, and that their numbers are actually decreasing. Those who come at first represent the worst classes of China ; in future, the better classes will come ; they will not fail to see the advantages of American life, they will be- come citizens, intermarry, and be absorbed into the general population, just as all the other nationalities are. With higher earnings will come more extended needs, and the clever Chinaman will develop rapidly, when once he comes fairly under the new influences. The crime and disease are incidents of the beginning of the immigration ; it will be easy to refuse to receive diseased persons, to close the gambling-dens, and to stamp out the opium traffic. Third, almost apart from any other considerations, the proposed Bill is so contrary to all national tradition, is so un-American, that, should it finally be enforced, it will be a blot upon the country's-record incompre- hensible to future generations. The first words of the De- claration of Independence are that "all men are created equal," and that among their inalienable rights are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ;" the Constitution of the United States inveighs against distinctions be- cause of "race, colour, or previous condition of servitude ;" it is the just boast of her citizens that every man who comes peaceably and keeps the laws, has a right to labour and to the fruits of his labour; when China proposed to keep out the Whites, she was quickly forced into acceptance of these first principles of civilisation ; and now shall America become a laughing-stock by the adoption of the barbarian policy she would not tolerate in others? America had her origin in the idea of human freedom and " expansion ;" on this idea her civilisation rests, and from it she draws her hopes of perpetuity. To set at naught this fundamental principle, in order to correct a merely local and temporary difficulty or to favour any class of the community, would be, as the Member for Wisconsin put it, "like drawing blood from the human body to quench its thirst." And finally, the keenest argument against this proposed legislation is found in the fact that it is little more than a bid on the part of the Republicans for the Californian vote,—a desire to appear to the Californians to be " holding the door firmly against the heathen rush." " If the 100,000 Chinese in California had votes in their hands," said a courageous Congressman from Ohio, "I know some men who would not vote as they do now." This scheme, however, has broken down delightfully, for the Democrats were as warm as the Republicans in their support of the Bill, and so no party use can be made of it. And again, as the New York Nation — one of the ablest American papers—points out, a national legislative recognition of the fact that race may be an incurable defect for political purposes may be a very awkward precedent when the Negro problem comes up again, as it is pretty certain to do. As regards naturalisation, also, even if it is admitted that the Chinese will never become American citizens, this should be considered—so this party thinks—a great advantage. The wholesale enfranchisement of the Negroes, they think, was a sad blunder ; there are thousands of white voters whose votes are a positive harm to the community ; America should wel- come heartily a large body of faithful workers who are quite content to be governed.
These are the arguments for the defence, and there is no mistaking the fact that, if not convincing, they are at least strong. Each side presents so good a case, that though we may not fall into the predicament of the Dutch judge, and decide in favour of them both, we are still unable to offer a ready-made solution. It has been suggested that a few mil- lions of Chinese should be imported into the interior of Africa, to struggle for existence with the Blacks ; and that when, like the Kilkenny Cats, the Chinese• and the Africans had killed each other off, the ingenious American should step in and possess the land. And this jocular solution is, perhaps, as good a one as can be offered at the present time. It seems plain that the United States cannot ultimately prohibit the immigration of the Chinese, although this immigration is un- doubtedly an evil, and that the solution of the question will have to be found in the humble field of experience.
Our reasons for thinking the Chinese Question bigger than it is loud do not appear, however, in any of the above argu- ments. Space compels us to give them very briefly. The result of the unlimited immigration of cheap labour to the United States will be to foster still further the enormous com- mercial developments, glorious to apostrophise when times are good, but fraught with fearful ruin when times are bad. It will enrich the capitalist and the " railway king," while im- poverishing the labourer, thus making the inequalities in society greater than at present; and from these inequalities spring most of the evils of our times. Richer rich and poorer poor,— this is all that is needed to bring corruption into American or any other politics, to sap the ideas of the Republic, to ensure the ultimate wreck of its civilisation ; and this is precisely what " Chinese cheap labour " will produce. Still, we are convinced that the solution is not to be found in restrictive legislation. That, at best, would be but to postpone the evil day,—a half-measure, like prohibition, or the suppression of free speech in Germany, or military law in the Nihilistic dis- tricts ; or, to take the latest example, like undiscriminating coercion in Ireland.
The truth is that in this Chinese antinomy, our neighbours across the water are face to face with a very big problem. The weightiest questions of modern times—capital and labour, the franchise, democratic institutions themselves—are visible be- hind this " heathen Chinee ;" and, unfortunately, this is not an age of great statesmen in America. It is an age of ignorant politicians, and, therefore, of corrupt politics, of commercial intrigues, of a plainly visible relaxing of public delicacy, if not of actual morality ; and with President Arthur deliberately undoing much of the good which Garfield began, the momentary outlook is anything but bright.
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