The Evening Post, Monday August 14, 1871

The tide of Chinese immigration seems to have fairly set in for the Otago Province. One large batch of Mongolians have already arrived there, more are reported to be on the way, and should the influx continue, there is very little doubt but that in a short time "John Chinaman" will muster strongly on every gold field throughout the Colony, and ultimately take root amongst the general population. The questions therefore arise whether these Chinese are a desirable class of colonists, and what will be the probable results of their settlement in New Zealand. If the gold digger's opinion were asked on the subject, he would say that the "Heathen Chinee" is an insufferable nuisance ; a cheating, thievish neighbor (sic); a sort of fossicking, jobbing nondescript, who will work for a rate of pay that a European would not accept, and who can eke out a living on mining ground where anybody else would starve. As reducing the price of labour, the Chinaman is by no means popular with diggers, but his merits and demerits as a colonist demand to be considered by a more unbiassed opinion. It may be said in favor (sic) of the Chinaman that he is sober, frugal, industrious, and persevering. He makes an excellent miner on partially exhausted diggings, which prove remunerative to him when worked on a system of associated labor (sic). Then he is an accomplished market gardener, and can raise the most delicious of vegetables from the least promising looking land, while experience in California proves that as a restaurant keeper, cook, waiter, or general servant, he does his work in a most efficient manner. A careful observer of them says:— "From digging in a mine to cooking, an omelette, and washing a shirt, he can make shift to do most things by which money can be gained. As a small number amongst a European population, the Chinese would be comparatively unobjectionable, and very useful. Hop Chang would keep a laundry ; Chi Hi go out as cook, and Cum Sing officiate as a sort of maid of all work. Supple and patient, those yellow men, though but weak in frame, are eager for any kind of work; but they prefer the employment of women to those of men, delighting in an engagement to wash clothes, to nurse babies, and to wait on guests." There is, however, another side to the picture. The Chinese may be useful and harmless members of a European colonial community, where there are few of them, but when, as in California, their race pours in till their total number promises to be counted by hundreds of thousands, then their presence becomes a very serious evil. With the good qualities which the race possess, they have also many bad ones and the latter become fully developed wherever a regular settlement is effected on a large scale in any new country. If a few Chinamen were scattered here and there in New Zealand, the immoral and debased habits of their race would either not be practised, or, at all events, not obtruded upon, the European community. But if some twenty or thirty thousand were to come to this colony, they would reproduce the habits, customs, and vices of their own land here, and become a pest and an eyesore in our very midst. These yellow men are Buddhists, professing polygamy, practising infanticide. Their immorality is something frightful to contemplate, and vices almost nameless amongst a civilised community are familiar to them. Besides, the Chinaman has a number of minor faults that render him by no means a desirable neighbour. He lies and cheats habitually, while theft with him is of habitual commission whenever apparently safe opportunities occur. Nor is it an objection without weight, that when the Chinese come to a Colony, the immigration is almost exclusively confined to men, and it is almost needless to point out the serious evils which must arise from the existence of a large isolated class, in which there is no admixture of the sexes.

We regard this influx of Chinese to New Zealand with much doubt and misgiving. In 1867 these yellow men were some sixty thousand strong in America, but judging by their rapidly increasing immigration to the Pacific States, they may, ere long, number six hundred thousand. What has occurred in America may also happen in New Zealand. The few shiploads of Chinese arriving now may be followed by any number of others, and then there would arise in our midst a race possessing a custom which is not of kin to ours, and a genius largely different. By-and-bye, these men would acquire votes, and mayhap hold the balance of parties. In some districts they might be in a majority, and carry everything before them at election times.: It is not a pleasant thought that "the Heathen Chinee" might become master of the situation in politics, and that his religion might be represented by the upraising of Buddhist temples in Dunedin, Auckland, and Wellington. This Chinese question is one worthy the most serious attention of the Assembly. It will not, of course, do to talk of prohibiting Chinese immigration altogether, though the exclusion policy pursued towards foreigners by the Chinese in their own country might, in a certain degree, afford some justification for such a course. Still, something might be done to check the threatened influx by imposing a pretty heavy poll tax on every Chinaman landing in New Zealand. Such a tax can be shown to be quite fair, when it is considered how much less the Chinese would contribute towards the customs duties than the Europeans, while enjoying an equal amount of benefit and protection from the institutions of the country. This kind of tax was levied in California when that country was becoming inundated with Chinese; and as the same state of affairs may arise in New Zealand, it would be well to attempt the application of what may prove in some small degree a means of remedy. We trust this question will be brought up in the Assembly during the present session.^[1]