CHINESE NOTES.
—The House Committee on Education and Labor made a report, February 25th, on the Chinese question, of which we give the following abstract: Since the first treaty with China, in July, 1844, the migration has been on the steady increase for the last twenty years—from 1855 to 1859, it was 4,530; 1860 to 1864, it was 6,600; from 1865 to 1870, it was 9,311; from 1871 to 1874, it was 13,000. —— The lowest estimate of Chinamen in California is 150,000. From the density of population in China, and the lowness of wages, from their migratory disposition, and the attractions of our congenial climate, high wages and liberal government, and the cheapness and safety of the voyage hither, an increasing rate of immigration is prophesied. —— While the Chinaman is desirable merely as a laborer, he has neither home, self-respect, nor underclothes, and lives on rice, tea and dried fish. He has low ideas of religion, labor, women and virtue. —— He does not assimilate with the American people, and is unchanged by contact. He does not mean to stay, and will not even contribute his dead body to our national welfare. He cannot be made into a soldier, or even a juryman. —— He is proud of Confucius, and vainly boasts of China as the central nation of the world. He is, and will remain, distinct “in color, size, features, dress, language, customs, habits and social peculiarities.”
The joint resolution relative to Chinese immigration is as follows:
“Whereas, It appears that the great majority of Chinese immigrants are unwilling to conform to our institutions, to become permanent residents of our country, and accept rights and assume responsibilities of citizenship; and,
”Whereas, They have indicated no capacity to assimilate with our people; therefore,
“Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to open correspondence immediately with the Governments of China and Great Britain, with the view of securing a change or abrogation of all stipulations in existing treaties which permit unlimited immigration of Chinese to the United States.”
—Cheap labor, whether by machine or by man-power, has always been resisted by those whom it has displaced. But it always pushes the more intelligent laborers up and not down. It has been so in California. Men are now foremen who were only fruit-pickers, and engineers who were only miners before Chinese labor came in.
—Race unions, to keep prices of labor up, and to put competition down, are no better than other unions for these purposes. All such combinations are both short-sighted and selfish.
—In the San Francisco Bulletin, we find the following schedule of labor rates in that city: Carpenters, from $3 to $3.50 a day; bricklayers, $4 to $5; painters, $3; plasterers, $3.50; hod-carriers,$3; stone-cutters, $4; machinists, $3 to $4; brass-founders, $4.50; common laborers, $2; woolen mills, $2.50 to $3.50; domestics, $25 to $30 a month—not more than two children allowed in an employer’s family at that. It can be seen at a glance that these wages are twice those paid in the Eastern States for corresponding work. Does Chinese competition keep these prices up, or does California need less homeopathic doses of “China” to bring her prices somewhere near the level of her sister States?
—By the statistics of the arrivals and departures for 1877, it appears that 9,906 passengers arrived from China and Japan, and 7,852 returned, showing an excess of 2,054 arrivals, not all of whom, indeed, were Mongolians; while the deaths of Chinese exceeded 2,054. It would seem that our Christian statesmen of San Francisco might repress their morbid solicitude, in view of these encouraging facts.