Mr. Creswell's admirable pamphlet, "The Chinese Labour Question from Within"
(P. S. King and Son, 4d. net), a temperate but exceedingly damaging indictment of the inden- tured labour system as it is worked in the Transvaal, deserves the closest attention of all who are interested in Imperial affairs. His objection to Chinese labour is not based on sentimental grounds—he admits that at the moment both natives and China- men are on all the best mines in greater material comfort than they have ever known in their lives—though he rightly insists on the debasing effect this system must have on a community which makes up its mind to build its whole social edifice on it. He impeaches the policy on broad public grounds as short- sighted, reactionary, and undemocratic. In his view, it has only been rendered possible by the political supremacy of financial corporations whose interest in the Colony is external and of a purely pecuniary character, and its continuance will be fatal to the existence of a progressive and prosperous com- munity of white men. Dismissing the cancelling of the Ordinance as impracticable, and even dangerous, he recom- mends the appointment of a real Royal Commission (as opposed to the original Commission, in which the financial interest predominated) to collect evidence exhaustively and impartially, and then to leave the Colony when endowed with full responsible government to settle the matter for itself.
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