Professor James Simpson, of New College, Edinburgh, who lately visited South Africa with the British Association, takes the view, I see, that ere long the more evilly-disposed among the Chinese will have been worked out of their ranks, and the whole body will settle down to "strenuous, if automatic, labour." It is devoutly to be hoped that such will be the case, but up to the present there is nothing to indicate that it will be so. On the contrary, everything points to the fact that the Chinaman, emboldened by his successful efforts at checkmating the representatives of law and order, will perpetrate fresh outrages with increased impunity, and that the last phase of the yellow terror will be worse than the first.
I had just written the foregoing when, happening to pick up an evening paper, the following Reuter message from Johannesburg, dated November 3, caught my eye:—
"Chinese Secret Society on the Rand.
"Johannesburg, November 3.
"Evidence given at the trial here of some Chinamen charged with being concerned in the disturbance at the New Modderfontein Mine, disclosed the existence of an organized secret society among the Chinese called the 'Red Door,' the object of which is the committal of crime. The members, who are all of bad character, are sworn to render each other assistance. The authorities are breaking up the society and repatriating the ringleaders."
What has His Grace of Canterbury to say to this?
I have seen in a recent election in England a poster evidently intended as a counterblast to the posters issued by the Opposition. It is a poster, in which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman is addressing an English miner, while in the distance two happy Chinamen grin pleasantly in the clean, well-laid-out mine. Says Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in effect, "My dear man, these men are robbing you of your labour." "Not at all," replies the white miner, "for every batch of these yellow men one white man is employed."
This is intended as a defence of the statement made by Lord Milner on March 20, 1904, who then stated that he was prepared to stake his reputation on the estimate that for every 10,000 coloured labourers introduced there would be in three years' time 10,000 more whites in the country. In effect, the implication underlying this statement was, of course, that for every yellow man introduced, one white man would come into the country and find employment.
Six months later—on September 5, 1904—the Colonial Secretary replied as follows, to a correspondent who wrote asking him whether it would be now advisable for a man to go out to the Transvaal.
"Mr. Lyttelton," so ran the answer, "would certainly not advise any one to go out without a definite prospect of employment."
So far from 50,000 white men finding employment in the Transvaal since the introduction of 50,000 Chinamen, the proportion is thousands below this number, and not even the poverty-stricken state of Poplar or West Ham can compare with the impecuniosity to be met with at every street corner of the Gold Reef City. There are thousands of men in South Africa who have been lured there by the prospects of the Rand in a daily state of destitution. The streets of Johannesburg are crowded with unemployed. The evil seeds of poverty and destitution have been scattered throughout the length and breadth of South Africa. Business in Durban is in a parlous condition. In Cape Town there are thousands of absolutely destitute men, women, and children who have to be provided for weekly out of funds now almost exhausted. Night after night these unfortunate wretches are compelled to sleep on the mountain slopes, whether it be winter or summer, and quite recently a man was found on one of the seats in the Public Gardens in such a state of starvation—for he had tasted nothing for five whole days—that he died an hour and a half after.