Financially the Chinamen have been a failure, a very grave failure. Socially their importation has proved disastrous. Instead of bringing wealth they have brought stagnation. Instead of bringing employment for the white man they have brought destitution and abject poverty. In introducing them it was recognized that some system must be devised by which they could be prevented from mixing with the population. That system has failed utterly and completely. They were to have brought wealth; they were to have brought employment for the white man. All they have brought is chaos. All they have done is to increase the output of gold at a cost which has decreased instead of increasing the mining companies' dividends. They have spread a terror throughout the length and breadth of the Transvaal. Economically and socially the policy proposed by the mine owners and forced upon the Government has proved deplorable. Their introduction has been a grave Imperial error which has aroused in the great self-governing Colonies anger and indignation. It has already loosened the bonds which the common danger of war had tightened.
Their continued stay in South Africa, and the continued introduction of more coolies has given rise to the possibility of danger that is awful to contemplate. The rising of the black man would leave the policing of nearly 50,000 Chinamen in the hands of a few white men.
It is not too much to say that no greater sin against the ideals of the British people, no more vicious and ruinous policy, has ever been adopted.
THE END
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.
