SIR,—The Parliamentary discussions on the question of intro- ducing Chinese
labour into South Africa would seem to indicate much haziness, not to say lack of knowledge, on the great practical questions—moral and others—which such a course will be found actually to involve. The experience of the highly civilised countries which have coquetted with this description of labour has not been that they have been able to raise the Chinaman above his own moral standard of life, but that their own morality and civilisation have in consequence suffered. I do not call in question the motives of the Government, nor of those who sympathise with them in what is at least a temporary difficulty in connection with South African labour. Their intention is, no doubt, to surround and safeguard Chinese immigration with such restrictions as, according to their view, may render it innocuous for evil to the white and black populations of South Africa. But have they really acquired any practical knowledge from the experience of others of what they would undertake ?
I was resident on the North Pacific coast of the United States between 1874 and 1897, embracing pretty much the period during which the Chinese immigration question on that coast underwent many phases,—from free entry to absolute exclusion. My own primary impressions were not adverse to free entry. I saw in it what was believed to be the necessity of an undeveloped country, which, from its remoteness, could not attract an adequate supply of white labour. I regarded hostility to it as begotten of ignoble political motives and prejudice. It may be admitted that much of that agitation was undertaken primarily from ignoble political motives. The Chinese were found to interfere in some instances with white labour,—they were frequently more reliable in their work than many of the class of white labourers then available, and, therefore, supplanted them.
But ultimate restriction and exclusion did not arise from these motives and circumstances exclusively, but because, on greater experience of the Chinese, the more serious and responsible portion of the body politic apprehended the danger to their own morality and civilisation from the presence among them of a people—alien in religion and morals— whom they could not assimilate, and with whom they could not and would not associate. Any comfort or salve to thd conscience which, according to circumstances, Parliament may derive from legal enactments designed to eliminate the principle of slavery, or in making provision for the domestic life of Chinese immigrants, by facilitating their bringing their wives and families to South Africa, I would venture to characterise as doomed to discomfiture. Any one who has had comprehensive experience of
Chinese imported coolie labour is aware that practical slavery is the very essence of it. That is the experience on the North Pacific coast of America, and if my information is correct, in other countries where this coolie labour is involved.
It is recruited from the lowest stratum of the Chinese coolie class, principally in Southern China. " Boss " Chinamen contract (I may assume with railway or other employers of labour) to supply so many men. This "boss," if not himself the agent or representative of a Chinese mercantile guild or company, is probably a sub-contractor with such a company. Together they secure the men by advances of money, and contracts to return them to China "alive or dead,"—for every Chinese demands this ; it is involved in his religion. By these means, and others of a devious character beyond the knowledge, or probably the com- prehension, of any except Orientals, these Chinese coolies may be
said to be owned by their " companies " body and soul. It is de facto as thorough a system of practical slavery as ever existed in the Southern States of America or the West Indies, even if, unlike
them, it is outside the pale of the laws of the State where it is prac- tised; and I defy the Colonial or British Governments to prevent it in South Africa by any practical enactments which they can devise. The "six companies," as known in California, hold the destinies of the individual Chinese resident there, I might say almost absolutely, in their hands.
Similarly I am quite satisfied that no Government can devise practical means which will ensure that the female Chinese who may go to South Africa shall be the wives and daughters of the men who may profess so to protect them. Unless almost all experience is to be reversed, the females who do go—and they will be very few indeed as compared with the males—will in very rare instances be wives or daughters, but women and children who, under the same practical slavery system, are to be mere chattels for the immoral use of the men. Let any who may doubt these statements visit "Chinatown" in San Francisco, or the "China- towns" of the smaller and more provincial towns of the North Pacific coast. Let him form his estimate of the " caged" women there, of the opium dens, of the gambling-houses, all of which he may visit under police protection. And when he has completed his investigation, let him decide whether he desires to apply a system capable of such results to a Colony of this Empire, which has only been won with the expenditure of much British gold and, more precious still, by the blood of her sons.
But it may be argued that to us as a people belongs the power of putting in force more stringent municipal laws, and the fear of greater penalties, wherewith to cope with the immoralities prevailing in the communities which I have instanced. I do not stop to argue the point. I do not know the conditions existing in the mining towns of South Africa, —how strong the existing sentiment there for good may be. I should doubt, however, if it is any stronger than the like sentiment in the towns of the North Pacific coast of America, and it is not a negligible quantity there. But gather and hoard together a Chinese population of the class involved, and there will be both the will and the way, notwithstanding municipal enactments and penalties to the contrary.
The United States, particularly in connection with their Pacific coast territories, have had their experience of the evil, and have now met it by enactments of practically absolute exclusion. Our own Colonies of Canada and Australia have found the in- tolerableness of the system, and time and again have increased the restrictions against immigration. Has our Government sought exhaustive enlightenment on the question from the Governments of their Colonies, or from their own represen- tatives in the United States ? I surmise they could get much information for their guidance from these quarters, and I likewise surmise that this information would be adverse to the proposed experiment in South Africa. I have nothing to say against the docility of the great mass of the Chinese coolies,—they will do their work, and fulfil their contracts, but they will pretty exclu- sively be found incapable of moulding their lives and moral habits to those of a highly civilised and well-constituted State. It is sincerely to be hoped that our Government will pause before saddling South Africa with an evil which it may take genera-
tions to overcome the effects of. •
[We trust that our correspondent's moderate and con- vincing letter may be widely quoted in the Press of the self- governing portions of the Empire. It will help to show that the opposition to Chinese indentured labour is not founded on any dislike of capitalists, or from any desire to injure the
mine-owners, but upon the conviction, based on experience, that it must be injurious to the great white self-governing community which we desire to see grow up in South Africa.— En. Spectator.]
Previous page
