of the treaty of 1842, confirmed at Tientsin, which opened the territories of each country to the subjects of the other. But it has not been pointed out that the semi-prohibitive poll-tax which has for years been imposed on Chinese entering Australia amounts to a constructive breach of that treaty; at all events, it would have been so considered if such a tax had been imposed on British subjects entering China. The Chinese Government does not, however, seem to have, at any time, protested seriously against its imposition. Emigration is, no doubt, a great gain to the individual Chinaman, but it is possible that his Government may not seriously object to our exclusion of him, though they may naturally demand a quid pro quo. The returning Chinaman is apt to bring home with him some inconveniently un-Chinese views; his emigration, too, may be, pro tanto, a financial loss to his own provincial Government, and it is even possible that the central Government might prefer to see the migratory stream flowing towards the thinly peopled districts in the west of China.
Doubtless the outcry against the prohibition comes, in some degree, from the agencies and shipping companies interested in the emigration trade. On the other hand, we must sympathise with the apprehensions of those Australians who fear an irruption of Chinese in overwhelming numbers. The contingency, however improbable, is certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility. Still, it is pretty safe to say that nine-tenths of the agitation, of the outcry against "Chinese immorality" and the imminent degradation of the "Anglo-Saxon" type by a yellow Mongolian tinge and obliquity of vision, physical and moral, proceeds simply from the working man's dread of competition in. the labour market. Given the conditions of Australia – a vast territory, much of it tropical and unsuited to white labour, and occupied by a sparse white population – it seems unfortunate that no arrangement should be possible by which our race might profit by the presence of a singularly industrious, intelligent people, who would be content for the most part to remain outside the political system, and to continue hewers of wood and drawers of water. One can imagine a scheme under which all the rougher and coarser work might be done by an inferior race, the white man constituting an aristocracy of labour. It is undoubtedly an economical loss to the whole community that such an industry, for instance, as the Queensland sugar-planters, for which cheap and efficient coloured labour is a necessity of existence, should be crushed out of existence by the deprivation of such labour. But, in fact, under these conditions many other industries must languish in the tropical parts of the country, and its general development be indefinitely delayed.
Meanwhile the Conference which has been sitting at Sydney, in accordance with what seems the strong prevailing colonial sentiment, has just recommended the total exclusion of the labouring class of Chinese, making exemptions in favour of temporary residents, merchants, travellers, and the like; and it is hoped that some agreement may be arrived at, on this basis, between the Foreign Office and the Government at Pekin.
C. T.
