Johannesburg was never an exactly heavenly place. A gold centre attracts all the evil passions of men—draws to it, like the lodestone draws the needle—every species of adventurer and world vagabond.
President Kruger knew how to deal with the cosmopolitan1 hordes2 that thronged3 the streets of the "Gold-Reef City." He put a check upon the importation of undesirables4, and always remembered before all things that the Transvaal belonged to the Boer people and not to the cosmopolitan. The British Government might well have taken a leaf from his book. But they have failed to do so. Instead of making the interests of the Briton paramount5, they have deliberately6 allowed the Rand to be overrun by every type of Continental7 adventurer.
So Johannesburg, up to the summer of 1904, was never exactly peopled by a moral, law-abiding population.
[Pg 99]
The fierceness of competition, the keenness to make money rapidly, seems to electrify8 the sunny atmosphere of the Rand, and to produce a community that knows no law.
But since the summer of 1904 the Rand has suffered a change which at one time was thought impossible; it has changed for the worse. To the wild life in the mining city has been added the degrading vices9 of the Orient. The Chinaman has brought with him all the worst vices of life in a treaty port. Opium11 dens12 and gambling13 hells, in spite of the most careful police surveillance, have sprung up. The yellow man has made his name a terror. He has murdered, raped14, robbed, and committed every offence against law and morality. He has literally15 terrorized—and still terrorizes—the Rand. The plutocrat Jew walks the familiar streets in a state of trepidation16; the Boer farmer sleeps with a rifle by his side, and his farm house is surrounded by spring guns and alarums. The life of no white man is safe, and the honour of no white woman.
"The Chinese reign17 of terror continues on the Rand," cabled the Durban correspondent of the Daily Chronicle on November 1. "The latest outrage18 is that perpetrated by a gang of coolies, who attacked a house at Benoni, injuring its occupant, Mr. Vaughan, and wounding his wife with a razor. They ransacked19 the house and stole the plate." These are some of the men whose praises were sung by Sir George Farrar at a political meeting at the[Pg 100] Nigel—and whose work as miners, he declared, had proved "a great success." A "great success," perhaps, for the Rand lords, but at what a terrible cost to the community of the Witwatersrand!
The South African News of Cape20 Town has rendered yeoman service to the cause of those who are opposed—and their name is legion!—to the Chinese labour question. The ridiculous contentions21 of the Rand lords have been exposed again and again by the Cape Town journal, whose fearlessness in grappling with the subject has been in marked contrast to the majority of its contemporaries in the sub-continent, and has earned, as it has deserved, the thanks of the thinking portion of the community. Commenting on October 4 on the continuance of the reign of terror on the Rand, "as it was bound to continue," the South African News puts the case with unmistakable plainness;—"Unless the Chinese are confined in such a way as the mine-owners themselves consider fairly describable as slavery, they are a menace to the public. Probably slavery would mean further outrages22; it is clear that torture of various kinds has been allowed on the Rand, and it is far less clear that this is not the real cause of some of the excesses which have shocked South Africa. Either we must have slavery and exasperation23, or we must have our people exposed to the danger of murder, outrage and robbery; or we must demand the expulsion of the Chinese, and the turning down[Pg 101] of a disgraceful page in South African and English history which has brought good to no one, and only serves as another indication of the strength to which avarice24 will lead men in attempting to bend nature into the service of their own greed."
It was understood that the only conditions under which Chinese labour could be introduced to the Rand was a system by which they were kept apart, under lock and key, from the rest of the population. But this system has broken down. Hordes of Chinese, as I have shown, are running over the country. The utter futility25 of the compound system is proved by the fact that as many as thirteen Chinese laundries have been broken up by the police in one week, only for others to take their place.
It was recognized by the Government that the Chinaman must not be allowed to be a competitor. This was one of the reasons of herding26 him with his fellows like cattle in a pen.
But the Chinaman broke loose. With Asiatic unconcern he sets all the rules of the Ordinance27 at defiance28, and calmly sets up a laundry in the town, caters29 for custom, carries on his business just as if he were a free man and not a yellow serf, until some frightened cosmopolitan sees him in the streets, and in a state of fear demands that the nearest policeman shall see whether the creature has a permit or not.
John Chinaman, who, of course, has no[Pg 102] permit, is thereupon arrested, his laundry business comes to an abrupt30 close, and he starts once again his task of gold grubbing for a shilling a day.
"It is provided that labourers being in possession of gum, opium, extract of opium, poppies, etc., shall be liable to a fine on conviction of ￡20, or in lieu thereof of imprisonment32 for three months, with or without hard labour."
Twelve months before, some few weeks after the arrival of the first batch35 of Chinamen, the Government had passed what was known as the Poison Ordinance. The object of this Ordinance was to regulate the sale of opium. It provided that only registered chemists and druggists might sell opium, and that every package of the drug must be labelled with the word "Poison."
Of course, this was ridiculously inadequate36, and it was soon found that more stringent37 measures must be taken. It was decreed, therefore, that opium could only be sold to persons known to the seller, and on an entry being made in the poison-book. These further restrictions38 were found perfectly39 futile40. The sale of opium increased enormously.
At a meeting of the Transvaal Pharmacy41 Board, the secretary of the board read his[Pg 103] report on the poison-books of the chemists in Johannesburg. It transpired42 that an examination of the books of one chemist had disclosed the following sales of opium on various dates in July and August last—336 lbs., 18 lbs., 28 lbs., 7 lbs., 31 lbs., 48 lbs. All this had been sold to Chinamen for smoking purposes.
One lot was said to have been sold under a medical certificate, but the doctor concerned denied all knowledge of such certificate. The chairman of the board said, that while it was gratifying to know that only three out of sixty-eight pharmacies43 along the Rand carried on traffic in opium, the ugly fact remained that two of these chemists had imported during August two tons of Persian opium for smoking purposes, and an examination of their books disclosed that only a few pounds were unsold.
In vain have the authorities attempted to put an end to this drug habit. Recommendations have been made by the Pharmacy Board that any chemist secretly supplying the Chinese with drugs should be sent to prison, without the option of a fine. As if one evil were producing another evil, it has been proved that not only are the Chinamen demoralizing the Rand, but the Rand is demoralizing the Chinamen. The majority of the Chinese labourers have been drawn44 from the north of the Celestial45 Empire, where very little opium is used, on account of the poverty of the people. The comparatively large salaries which these labourers are now receiving enables them to[Pg 104] indulge their inherited taste for the drug to their hearts' content.
But in addition to this sale of opium by chemists on the Rand, opium dens have sprung up all over the place. As soon as the police stamp them out in one quarter they reappear in another. They are accompanied, of course, by the usual gambling hells. These, too, the police endeavour to suppress. All the money that they find is impounded; heavy fines are exacted. But instead of decreasing they increase. The most dangerous vice10 of the Orient is thus thriving luxuriantly upon the favourable46 soil of the Rand.
One cannot blame the Chinaman for drugging himself. It is difficult even to blame him for the outrages that he commits. The opium habit, of course, is a step towards other habits. If the Chinaman merely went to the opium dens in his off hours, drugged himself, slept his celestial sleep, and then returned to his labours prepared to work as hard as any cart-horse, the Rand lords would be the last persons to forbid him these indulgences. But the opium habit is demoralizing and degrading. It excites passions almost beyond control.
I have already pointed47 out that Mr. Lyttelton promised in the House of Commons that the Chinaman should be allowed to take his womenfolk with him if he wished, and a great point was made of the fact that the morality of the Chinamen would be well looked after. No risks were to be taken. The Archbishop of[Pg 105] Canterbury had to be satisfied upon the point before he made his regrettable necessity speech—"Show me that it brings about or implies the encouragement of immorality48 in the sense in which we ordinarily use the word, and, I am almost ashamed to say anything so obvious, I should not call the so-called necessity worth a single moment's consideration. In such a case there could be but one answer given by any honest man. The thing is wrong, and please God it shall not take place."
The Most Reverend Primate49 should be satisfied by now that the system deliberately set up in the Transvaal has brought about and encouraged immorality.
The Chinaman is always a frugal50 feeder, yet the strength of his passions is notorious. There is no necessity to go back into the past moral history of the Chinese race to contradict this statement.
Gangs of escaped labourers have attacked farm houses on the veld, and where they have found no men, or where the men have been overpowered, they have committed all the most bestial51 assaults known upon the women and children. One white woman was known to have been found raped, and dead. It is not safe for any decent or respectable white woman to go near a Chinaman. The way he looks at her is sufficient to raise the most murderous thoughts in the mind of any white man present.
A deputation of miners asked Lord Selborne for protection against the Chinamen, stating[Pg 106] that the way in which they spoke52 to and looked at white women was intolerable, and pointed out further that, unless steps were taken to protect the white population, the most horrible crimes would be committed.
That warning has proved true.
Lord Milner has called the sentiment, which has arisen in the breasts of nearly all Britons, of loathing53 for the introduction of Chinamen into the Rand, Exeter Hall sentiment. It possibly is the sentiment of Exeter Hall, but it is to be hoped it is the sentiment also of all decent people who believe in virtue54 and morality, and who still cherish a fine chivalrous55 ideal of woman.
The Government have again and again declared that the protest of the Opposition56 in the House of Commons was dictated57 purely58 by party considerations—that Chinese labour was a good stalking horse. That people really were concerned about the welfare of Chinamen on the Rand they refused to believe. As a matter of fact it is really the Government that are blinded by partisanship59; they see everything through a false medium. What they do not see falsely in the Transvaal they do not see at all. For it cannot be that they really are in favour of retaining on the Rand 50,000 Chinamen who commit the most loathsome60 outrages on the white population. It is almost passing belief that they should blind themselves to the fact that the womenfolk of the Transvaal are absolutely unprovided with any adequate protection against these hordes of Chinamen.
[Pg 107]
Every day, as has been shown, desertions grow more numerous, and with every Chinaman that escapes the terror increases. No steps have been taken for the protection of his morals. Not even the most human elementary step of letting him bring with him his wife has been taken. And but few steps have been taken to protect the white population. The most ordinary commonplace foresight61 has been wanting. The carnival62 of lust63 and blood now going on in the Transvaal could have been prevented. It was bad enough to introduce Chinese labour at all into the Transvaal. The case becomes more damnable when they are introduced without those restrictions which had been promised.
"I am opposed," said Herbert Spencer, "to the importation of Chinese labour, because if it occurs one of two things must happen. Either the Chinese must mix with the nation, in which case you get a bad hybrid64, and yet if they do not mix they must occupy a position of slavery."
The British Government, at the dictation of the Rand lords, attempted to make the Chinaman occupy a position of slavery, failed to completely establish this system, and is allowing the Chinamen to mix with the population. Thus we shall have in the Transvaal the two evils which Herbert Spencer raised his voice against. We have already slavery; we shall certainly have a bad hybrid population. The degrading influence of the Chinaman is shown in Johannesburg. White women are actually marrying them. They are even mixing with the black races.[Pg 108] The Transvaal was bad enough before, when merely thronged with the scouring65 of Europe. But it will be a thousand times worse before the last Chinaman is repatriated66.
In a morning paper of November 2 I read that Mr. Lyttelton, the Colonial Secretary, in a letter to Mr. George Renwick, M.P., defends the action of the Government in regard to the employment of Chinese labour. He refers to the demand for it in the South African colonies, and says—"The opinion to which we came was based upon evidence taken from many sources. That it was correct is borne out by the fact that we have received not a single petition from the Transvaal for the revocation67 of the Ordinance."
Let not Mr. Lyttelton lay such flattering unction to his soul. If it be true, as he states, that the Imperial Government have so far not received a single petition from the other side against the Chinamen, he need only wacht een beitje—wait a bit—as they say in South Africa. The petitions will follow. By and by they will be thick as leaves in Vallombrosa. Does Mr. Lyttelton never read the daily papers? Is he unaware68, for instance, that at a special meeting held at Krugersdoorp on October 10, a resolution was carried praying that an end might be put to the importation of Chinese, and that the Chinamen now on the Rand might be sent back immediately after the expiration69 of their contracts? Does he pretend to be ignorant of the fact that it was announced at the time that this resolution would be sent to the Imperial Government[Pg 109] through Lord Selborne? I cannot believe it. Let Mr. Lyttelton note that the correspondent from whose message I quote, significantly added—"If this way of protesting has no result, it is intended to send a deputation to England to discuss matters regarding the Chinese question."
Verily, it would seem that nothing short of a measure of the kind will stir the conscience of Christian70 England to an appreciation71 of the intolerable state of affairs now being endured in South Africa by those whose lot is cast in proximity72 to the yellow man!
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1
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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undesirables
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| 不受欢迎的人，不良分子( undesirable的名词复数 ) | |
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paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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electrify
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| v.使充电；使电气化；使触电；使震惊；使兴奋 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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raped
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| v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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trepidation
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| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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ransacked
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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contentions
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| n.竞争( contention的名词复数 )；争夺；争论；论点 | |
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outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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herding
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| 中畜群 | |
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ordinance
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| n.法令；条令；条例 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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caters
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| 提供饮食及服务( cater的第三人称单数 )； 满足需要，适合 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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Amended
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| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
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imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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stringent
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| adj.严厉的；令人信服的；银根紧的 | |
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restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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41
pharmacy
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| n.药房，药剂学，制药业，配药业，一批备用药品 | |
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transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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pharmacies
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| 药店 | |
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44
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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45
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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46
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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48
immorality
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| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
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49
primate
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| n.灵长类（目）动物，首席主教；adj.首要的 | |
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50
frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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51
bestial
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| adj.残忍的；野蛮的 | |
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52
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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53
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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54
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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55
chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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56
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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57
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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58
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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59
Partisanship
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| n. 党派性, 党派偏见 | |
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60
loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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64
hybrid
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| n.(动，植）杂种，混合物 | |
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65
scouring
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| 擦[洗]净，冲刷，洗涤 | |
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66
repatriated
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| v.把（某人）遣送回国，遣返( repatriate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
revocation
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| n.废止，撤回 | |
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68
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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69
expiration
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| n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物 | |
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70
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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71
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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