The North and South are quarrelling about a new question.
The Southern planters are anxious to fill up their estates with Chinese, who they think will take low wages, obey orders, and work hard, and they are employing a Californian contractor, a Dutchman, to bring over 100,000 Chinese as a first instalment. The Northerners do not like the importation, as tending to reduce white wages, and quote the Coolie Act, which forbids it. Herr Koopmanschaap, however, says his people are not "coolies," but free immigrants, and he shall bring them and run the risk. We suspect the planters will find themselves mistaken. The little yellow men are splendid labourers, can live anywhere and eat anything, but they will have the highest wages going. If they cannot get them, they either shoot their oppressors, as in Siam, or kill themselves, as in the guano islands off Callao. In neither case are they profitable to unjust employers.
Previous page
