Before I went to San Francisco, I had an idea that a "Chinese question" was agitating the State of California, that every white man was excited about the expulsion of the heathen, that it was the topic of the day, and that passion ran high between the rival populations. I very soon found that I had been mistaken, and that there is really no "Chinese question" at all in California. At least, the one question now is, how to evade the late bill stopping Chinese immigration; and it was gleefully pointed out to me that though the importation of Celestials by sea was prohibited, there was no provision to prevent them being brought into the State by land; and that the numbers of the arrivals would not probably diminish in the least!
I had intended to "study" the Chinese question. But there is not much study to be done over a ghost. Besides, every Californian manufacturer is agreed on the main points, that Chinese labour is absolutely necessary, that there is not enough of it yet in the State, that more still must be obtained. And where a "problem" is granted on all hands, it is hardly worth while affecting to search for profound social, political, or economical complication in it. There is not much more mystery about it than about the nose on a man's face.
Of course those who organized the clamour have what they call "arguments," but they are hardly such as can command respect. In the first place they allege two apprehensions as to the future: 1. That the Chinese, if unrestricted, will swamp the Americans in the State; and 2. That they will demoralize those Americans. Now the first is, I take it, absurd, and if it is not, then California ought to be ashamed of itself. And as for the second, who can have any sympathy with a State that is unable to enforce its police regulations, or with a community in which parents say they cannot protect the purity of their households? If the Chinaman, as a citizen, disregards sanitary bye-laws why is he not punished, as he would be everywhere else: and if as a domestic servant he misbehaves, why is he not dispensed with, as he would be everywhere else?
Besides these two apprehensions as to the future, they have three objections as to the present. The first is, that the Chinese send their earnings out of the country; the second, that they spend nothing in San Francisco; the third, that they underwork white men. Now the first is foolish, the second and the third, I believe, untrue. As to the Chinese carrying money out of the country—why should they not do so? Will any one say seriously that America, a bullion-producing country, is injured by the Chinese taking their money earnings out of the States, in exchange for that which America cannot produce, namely, labour? Is political economy to go mad simply to suit the sentiment of extra-white labour in California?
As to the Chinese spending nothing in this country, this is hardly borne out by facts, and, in the mouths Of San Franciscans, specially unfortunate. For they have not only raised their prices upon the Chinese, but have actually forbidden them to spend their money in those directions in which they wished to do so. As it is, however, they spend, in exorbitant rents, taxes, customs-dues, and in direct expenditure, a perfectly sufficient share of their earnings, and if permitted to do so, would spend a great deal more. A ludicrous superstition, that the Chinese are economical, underlies many of the misstatements put forward as "arguments" against them. Yet they are not economical. On the contrary, the Chinese and the Japanese are exceptional among Eastern races for their natural extravagance.
It is further alleged that they underwork white men. This statement will hardly bear testing; for the wages of a Chinese workman, in the cigar trade, for instance, are not lower than those of a white man, say, in Philadelphia. They do not, therefore, "underwork" the white man; but they do undoubtedly underwork the white Californian. For the white Californian will not work at Eastern rates. On the contrary, he wishes to know whether you take him for "a — fool" to think that he, in California, is going to accept the same wages that he could have stopped in New York for! Yet why should he not do so? It will hardly be urged that the Californian Irishman is a superior individual to the Eastern American, or that the average San Franciscan workman is any better than the men of his own class on the Atlantic coast? Yet the Californian claims higher wages, and abuses the Chinese for working at rates which white men are elsewhere glad to accept. He says, too, that living is dearer. Facts disprove this. As a matter of fact, living is cheaper in San Francisco than in either Chicago or New York.
How did I spend my time in San Francisco? Well, friends were very kind to me, and I saw everything that a visitor "ought to see." But after my usual fashion I wandered about the streets a good deal alone, and rode up and down in the street-cars, and I had half a mind at first to be disappointed with the city of which r had heard so much. But later in the evening, when the gas was alight and the pavement had its regular habitues, and the pawnbrokers' and bankrupts'-stock stores were all lit up, I saw what a wild, strange city it was. Indeed, I know of no place in the world more full of interesting incidents and stirring types than this noisy, money-spending San Francisco.
One night, of course, I spent several hours in the Chinese quarter, and I cannot tell why, but I took a great fancy to the Celestial, as he is to be seen in San Francisco. Politically, nationally, and commercially, I hate Pekin and all its works. But individually I find the Chinaman, all the world over, a quiet-mannered, cleanly-living, hard-working servant. And in all parts of the world, except California, my estimate of Johnnie is the universal one. In California, however, so the extra-white people say, he is a dangerous, dirty, demoralizing heathen. And there is no doubt of it that, in the Chinese quarter of the city, he is crowded into a space that would be perilous to the health of men accustomed to space and ventilation, but I was told by a Chinaman that he and his people had been prevented by the city authorities from expanding into more commodious lodgings. As for cleanliness, I have travelled too much to forget that this virtue is largely a question of geography, and that, especially in matters of food, the habits of Europeans are considered by half the world so foul as to bring them within the contempt of a hemisphere. As regards personal cleanliness, the Chinese are rather scrupulous.
But I wonder San Francisco does not build a Chinatown, somewhere in the breezy suburbs, and lay a tramway to it for the use of the Chinamen, and then insist upon its sanitary regulations being properly observed. San Francisco would be rather surprised at the result. For the settlements of the Chinese are very neat and cleanly in appearance, and the people are very fond of curious gardening and house-ornamentation. The Chinese themselves would be only too glad to get out of the centre of San Francisco and the quarters into which they are at present compelled to crowd, while their new habitations would very soon be one of the most attractive sights of all the city. As it is, it is picturesque, but it is of necessity dirty—after the fashion of Asiatic dirtiness. Smells that seem intolerable assail the visitor perpetually, but after all they were better than the smell from an eating-house in Kearney Street which we passed soon after, and where creatures of Jewish and Christian persuasions were having fish fried. I am not wishing to apologize for the Chinese. I hate China with a generous Christian vindictiveness, and think it a great pity that dismemberment has not been forced upon that empire long ago as a punishment for her massacres of Catholics, and her treason generally against the commerce and polity of Europe. But I cannot forget that California owes much to the Chinese.
Next to the Chinese, I found the sea-lions the most interesting feature of San Francisco. To reach them, however (if you do not wish to indulge the aboriginal hackman with an opportunity for extortion), you have to undergo a long drive in a series of omnibuses and cars, but the journey through the sand-waste outskirts of the city is thoroughly instructive, for the intervals of desert remind you of the original condition of the country on which much of San Francisco has been built, while the intervals of charming villa residences in oases of gardens, show what capital can do, even with only sea-sand to work upon. We call Ismailia a wonder—but what is Ismailia in comparison with San Francisco! After a while solid sand dunes supervene, beautiful, however, in places with masses of yellow lupins, purple rocket, and fine yellow-flowered thistles, and then the broad sea comes into sight, and so to the Cliff House.