That the spirit and intent of this instrument are intensely hostile to the Chinese is well understood. To find it providing as skilfully and malignantly as possible for forcing them out of the State will create no surprise. It stands alone, I apprehend, among all our State Constitutions in singling out one class among those upon whose industries the State lives, and by whose taxes its treasury is replenished, and making it the object of restrictive and oppressive legislation. One whole Section (XIX.) is devoted to this, and bears as its title “Chinese.” Stigmatizing them as “aliens who are or may become vagrants, paupers, mendicants, criminals or invalids, * * * or otherwise dangerous or detrimental to the State,” it directs the Legislature “to discourage their immigration by all the means within its power;” “to impose conditions upon which such persons may reside in the State, and to provide for their removal from the State” if the conditions are not fulfilled. It forbids any corporation from employing them “directly or indirectly in any capacity;” and requires that cities and towns be empowered by the Legislature to “remove the Chinese beyond their limits, or to locate them within prescribed limits;” and to “make and enforce all such local, police, sanitary and other regulations as are not in conflict with general laws.” These provisions are broad enough to admit any and every cruelty conceivable to be practised under the forms of law, and the Chinese cannot, as heretofore, appeal to our State Supreme Court with any hope of relief from oppressive enactments. The question is, what will the result be, and what can we do about it?
If a man values highly his reputation for sagacity, he does well to be careful how he prophesies; and if anywhere such caution is needed, surely it is here in California; but as I have no reputation to be anxious about, I will tell how the prospect looks to me.
1. There can be no question that these provisions, carefully framed though they are, are in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, and with not only our present treaty with China, but any other treaty that could possibly be framed. Of course, all this may amount to nothing until the question of their constitutionality has been passed upon by the U. S. Supreme Court; but it seems to me that the interests involved are so many and so great that soon an issue must be made and be pressed through to decision. This done, that whole section——vile blot that it is on the fair fame of America!——becomes void, unless, indeed, the whole land can be dragooned by Californian politicians, overriding its treaties and trampling under foot the most sacred axioms of its civil polity——dragooned into a timid, restrictive, barbarous policy which we taught China years ago to discard. I do not believe this can be done. I have faith in a free people among whom the leaven of Christ is at work——faith that no question can get settled among them till it is settled right, and that however selfishness and oppression may triumph for awhile, their “latter end shall be that they perish for ever.”
2. If, however, the laws enacted in virtue of these new provisions are made to work, there cannot but be a large exodus of the Chinese from California. They will be starved out. We have come to the proud distinction of having, as a State, introduced starvation into our organic law. Those who can go, must go; and those who have not the means of travelling must starve or be removed at State expense. But as to the effect of that exodus, God is giving us beforehand an impressive object-lesson. The negro is scarcely more essential to the industry of the South than the Chinaman is to that of California. Let this exodus be large and simultaneous, and the backbone of business here is broken. There will be harvests that cannot be reaped, because the Liverpool price of wheat will not pay the cost of harvesting. There will be mills and other manufacturing establishments idle, because the manufactured goods can be laid down here from New England or Old England cheaper than we can produce them. There will be mines deserted, unless white men are found to work at Chinamen’s wages; for who wants to run off his gold-bearing dirt and thereby run himself off into bankruptcy? The hundreds of little businesses which, by the aid of the Chinese, yield men a small return, must be abandoned, for the higher wages will absorb the profits and the capital besides.
But, it may be said, white men have prospered elsewhere without the aid of the Chinese, why not in California? No doubt they can prosper here, but only as a new and lower level for American labor is found. Prices must fall, and the work must be steadier and harder than now it is apt to be. You see, perhaps, a good side to this in the frugality and industry to which it will compel our children; but my expectation is, that when this discipline begins to make us sore, when the real facts are forced upon men’s vision, then these provisions of our new Constitution will, by common consent, become inoperative, and Chinese labor or its equivalent will be welcomed back again.
I venture such predictions, but whether they prove true or not, this thing is certain, the Chinese still are here; and while they remain our work remains. If the time is short, so much the more urgent must we be in pressing upon their attention the Gospel of Christ. If the enmity against them rises with its opportunity and crowds them to the wall, so much the more must they hear from us the voice of Christian kindliness, commending to them Him who was the friend of publicans and sinners. If they are to be driven back to their own land, we must be the more earnest to let them know——not by our words only, but by our deeds rather——that it is not Christianity but the lack of Christianity that has exiled them; and we must see to it that as many as possible go to be self-sustaining missionaries, telling the story of redeeming love.
CHILDREN’S PAGE.
Dear Little Ones: