LTD TIM EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Two leading articles in your issue of February 13th, although they deal with apparently unconnected subjects, suggest (to my mind) a consideration hitherto untouched upon the yellow labour question. In the first article, on " The War," you discuss the possibility of the success of Japan, and, as a consequence of that success, the acquiring by Japan in China of " the position which we obtained in India " ; and in "The Yellow Peril in South Africa" you quote the very stringent conditions under which it is proposed that Chinese labourers should be admitted to the Transvaal. Well, Sir, suppose that position gained by Japan. " Japan," to use your words, " would drill the Chinese troops," " reorganise the Chinese Army," &c. Now I take it that the same class of Chinamen which would provide Transvaal labour would be the very class required by Japan in China to execute public works, railways, &c., and supply the rank-and-file of a reorganised Army. Would not Japan, the then dominant Power in China, strongly and effectively oppose such an exodus of Chinamen under such conditions P And even if Russia obtained that position, would not she, if only to injure and embarrass the trade of a British Colony, do precisely the same P Would not, therefore, in either case, the last state of the Transvaal mining interest be worse than the first ? The mines would have no trained white labour ready. The work would have been discredited in the free workman's eyes by its exclusive performance by semi-slave labourers ; and the native labour also, instead of having been patiently and gradually attracted. by generous terms and treatment, would have been per- manently estranged and made antagonistic and unavailable. The mines will have come to rely exclusively upon a labour supply liable to be cut off at the main. I think that if we, to whose position in India you liken the probable position of Japan in China, were to encounter a proposed emigration of the King's Indian subjects under such conditions as those proposed for the labourers to be imported into the Transvaal, we should not long hesitate to take measures promptly and effectually to put a stop to it.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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