John Chinaman on the Rand

by Anonymous

In February 1904 Mr. Lyttelton stated with regard to the importation of women with the Chinese—"We are advised in this matter by men of the most experience in the whole Empire on the subject of Chinese labour. We are advised that the coolies would not go without their womenfolk. Manifestly it would be wrong that they should go without their womenfolk if they were desirous of taking them with them."

To quiet the lethargic conscience of that adept courtier, his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was declared that the interests of public morality demanded that the Chinamen should be accompanied by their wives, and that this was one of the essential conditions of the Ordinance. It was pointed out at the time that once the mine owners had 5000 indentured labourers, they would not take upon themselves the burden of supporting their wives, with an average of three children apiece. It would mean 250,000 women and children. And it is almost inconceivable that even Mr. Lyttelton could have imagined that the cosmopolitan proprietors of the Transvaal would have taken upon themselves the superintendence of human beings utterly incapable of dragging gold from the earth.

As a matter of fact, Chinese have never taken their wives into foreign countries, and therefore the moral question, which so concerned Dr. Davidson for one brief day, was not settled. As a matter of fact, it was stated at the beginning of this year by the Colonial Secretary that while 4895 wives were registered as accompanying their husbands, only two women and twelve children had actually been brought over!

It was stated by Mr. Lyttelton, at the same time as he satisfied the conscience of the most Reverend Primate, that the Chinaman would be so well fed and so lightly worked that in the interests of morality it was physically necessary that he should be accompanied by his wife. In explaining the fact that only two women and twelve children had accompanied the thirty or forty thousand Chinamen up to the beginning of 1905, the Colonial Secretary remarked in effect that this fact would not lead to immorality, because the Chinaman's food was so frugal and his work was so steady that he would be almost physically incapable of those passions which are a source of so much trouble, of so much crime, of so much happiness, and of so much beneficence to the white man, the black man, the red man, and the brown man. Life under the Rand lords, in short, was practically emasculating, and therefore immorality was impossible.

I shall deal with this subject later on. For the present I will point out that this was the fourth pledge that had been given in the House of Commons, only to be broken, not, I admit, by Mr. Lyttelton and the Government, but by their masters, the mine owners on the Rand.

The Opposition steadily opposed the Government in the House.

Major Seely and Mr. Winston Churchill left the Conservative Party, Major Seely resigning his seat to test the temper of his constituents in the Isle of Wight on this very subject. The electors in the Isle of Wight were of no uncertain temper. They returned Major Seely to the House, thereby proving, as all subsequent by-elections have proved, that the Chinese Labour Ordinance is bitterly opposed by the vast majority of freedom-loving Britons.

It had been the custom during the war to submit very largely to the opinion of the colonies. In fact, the influence of colonial opinion had partly directed the policy of the Government for several years. Mr. Chamberlain constantly submitted to it, before, during, and after the war. He had based his bold venture of Tariff Reform on this very opinion. It was because the colonies would think this or would say that, that the British workman was to submit to a tax upon corn, a tax upon clothes, a tax upon everything else. It was reasonable to expect, therefore, that on such an important Imperial question, touching the welfare of a colony, to possess which the whole of the Empire had risen in arms, and men had poured from the snows of Canada and the rolling plains of the Bush, the opinions of the Five Nations would have been consulted. But even if the Government did not submit to this recognition of their services, to this acceptance of a common Imperial interest, it was only natural to have supposed that they would have at least taken into account the advice of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, who had experienced the evils of Chinese immigration.

I have travelled all over the Orange River Colony, Natal, Cape Colony, and the Transvaal, and the colonial people and the Dutch were all unanimously against the introduction of the Chinese on the Rand. I have never yet met one person in favour of the Ordinance. And since the Ordinance became law, and the yellow slaves began their work at the mines, nearly every person I have met in South Africa has openly regretted the war, and declared that they preferred the days of Paul Kruger, whose Government may have been corrupt, but was at any rate based on the principle that it is the duty of a white government to look after the moral and social welfare of its white subjects.