KWANQ. 
 
 Wky skoalA tlie Cklnese go? 
 
 1878. 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 079 566 042 
 
ROMYN HITCHCOCK. 
 
 ^'''.WHY SHOULD f 
 
 THE 
 
 Chinese Go? 
 
 A Pertinent Inquiry from a Man- 
 darin High in Authority. 
 
 — BY— 
 
 KWANG CHANG LING. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO; ,• • 
 
 BaucB's Book & Job Printing House, Sac. bel; Montg'y 
 •— :1878:-. 
 
 
 
 *5) 
 
 i. 
 
 
 9 
 
 t 
 
The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924079566042 
 
ROMYN HITCHCOCK. 
 
 \VHY SHOULD 
 
 -THE- 
 
 CHINESE G-O? 
 
 A Pertinent Inquiry from a Mandarin High in Authority. 
 
 BRUOe-S, SAO. BELOW MOMTaOMEIir. S. F. 
 
Why Should the Chinese Go ? 
 
 [Tlie following communications are from the columns of tiie AegoNattt newspaper.] 
 
 LETTER L 
 
 Palace Hotel, San Francisco, August 2, 1878. 
 To THE Argonaut : — You will doubtless gather from the sup^ftscription and 
 general appearance of this letter that I am what Europeans, in the abundance 
 of their vanity, would be very likely to regard as an anomaly — an educated 
 Chinaman. In a word, I spealc and write your language, as I believe cor- 
 rectly. And it is because of this slight accomplishment that my general un- 
 worthiness has been overlooked by my countrymen residing in California, and 
 I have been selected by them to communicate to the public, the Chinese side of 
 the Chinese question. The Argonaut' has been especially preferred as the 
 medium for the promulgation of these views on account of its reputed fairness 
 to all. .-. ■ . .-. 
 
 The cry is here that the Chinese must go. I say that they should not go ; that 
 they can not go ; that they will not go. More than this, that, were It conceivable 
 that they went, your Stp,te would be ruined ; in a,,word. that the Chinese popu- 
 lation of the Pacific Cofist have become indispensable! to its continued pros- 
 perity, and that you cannot afford to part' with thBm upon any consideration. 
 
 If this be true — and I believe I can demonstrate it even to your satisfaction 
 — the truth is an important one. It concerns every element of the future social 
 life of California; it lies at the basis of your industries; it is bound to sub- 
 vert that demagogism by which your politics, ap you call it. have been degraded 
 to a level scarcely higher than incendiarism, pillage and murder. ,. 
 
 Before I begin, let me describe the spirit in which I propose to discuss this 
 subject. In the first plac6 I. intend to be just; to diifer from you hoitestly, 
 to be influenced by neither prejudice, hatred nor resentment; to employ no 
 speeions arguments ; to set up no weak issue, the easier to demolish it ; to em- 
 ploy respectful language ; to advance no facts which are not either well known 
 to history, or established in the course of the discussion itself. 
 
 Clothed in this dignity of discourse, I enter the lists without fear. I am 
 upon your soil; I am sijrronnded, at the best, by unsympathetic spectators; 
 my only buckler is the truth ; my only weapon your language, the peouliarites of 
 which can never be wholly mastered by a foreigner. Far from complaining 
 of any disadvantage in these respects, I am free to own that no soil is freer, no 
 assemblage more noble, no regulations more just, than those which claim the 
 proud title of American. 
 
 And now let the heralds be heard and my grievance stated. Hear, oh. ye 
 just and valiant men, ye beauteous and compassionate women, the plaint of 
 Kwang Chang Ling a literate of the first-class, a warrior and noble, a leader 
 of the Chinese and a representative by authority. 
 
 The first intercourse in modern times between Europe and China took place in 
 the early part of the thirteenth century, when Genghis Khan, our first Mon- 
 gol emperor carried an imperial army and the cause of Deism, or, as you now call 
 it, Unitarianism (I use the word advisedly), through idolatrous Russia. In 
 1236, Oktai, son of Genghis, dispatched his nephew, Batu Khan, with ■ 500,000 
 men, who, in the same cause, conquered Russia, Poland and Silesia, including 
 the strongly fortified cities of Cracow and Lublin. This prince met and over- 
 threw in ijattle. Prince George II., of Prussia; Henry, Duke of Breslau ; and 
 Bela IV., of Hungary ; only resting his victorious army, after he had en- 
 camped in Dalmatia and floated the ensign of China above the Venitian sea. 
 
 In 1240, and while still occupied in that religious regeneration of Eastern 
 
Why Should the Chinese Go? 3 
 
 Europe which had been commenced by the illustrious Genghis, Prince Batu 
 died, leaving command of the army of occupation to Prince Barkah. In 
 1245, after news had reached Europe of the Conquest of Jerusalem by the 
 Kharizmians and the treacherous massacre of the Knights Templars and other 
 Christian inhabitants, the Seventh Crusade was proclaimed, and Pope Inno- 
 cent IV., of Rome, and Louis IX., of France, united in an entreaty to the 
 Chinese prince to combine with them in chastising the Moslem. This request he 
 was inclined to grant for two reasons: First, the Chinese sympathized with 
 Christianity, which had been tolerated and allowed to be pieaohed in China 
 since the advent of the Nestorian Olopwen in 636 ; second, at the time of 
 Prince Batu's death he was preparing a force to conquer Turkey and uproot 
 Mohammedanism. But insurrection breaking out in Rassia, Barkah was com- 
 pelled to march thither and forego the desire of uniting his forces with 
 those of the Christian monarchs. When, at a later period, Pope Boniface 
 yill. sent a number of Catholic missionaries to our country, they were re- 
 ceived with kindnes.s and permitted to preach their doctrines without molest- 
 ation. 
 
 So much for the first intercourse between China and modern Europe. To yon, 
 Genghis Khan was a cruel marauder at the head of an army of robbers and 
 murderers, who overran Eastern Europe for spoil. To us, he was a great relig- 
 ious leader, who sought to uproot idolatry and establish a pure and simple 
 deism in its place. The idea of leaving a rich country lilje China to find 
 spoil upon the desolate steppes of Russia, or among the wretched peasants 
 of :^ru3sia or Hungary, is absurd. If our generals ha^ been sent after spoil they 
 would have marched into Western Europe for it. There was no physical 
 obstacle to stop them. • They had more men-at-avms equipped and encamped in 
 Dalmatia than all Europe could have raised in a year. But there was a moral 
 obstacle in the way. AVestern Europe was a Christian country, and with the 
 religion of Christ the Chinese leaders had no quarrel. And so, from the 
 confines of Christendom, within whose borders they never entered, these half 
 a million warriors, with whom Prince Barkah had crossed the Danube, were 
 marched back, over five thousand miles, chiefly of arid wastes, to the Flowery 
 Kingdom and their homes. 
 
 If you have anything in the history of your civilization to match the magni- 
 tude of these expeditions, the distances they traversed, the grandeur of theirmis- 
 aion, and the sublime resti'aint they exercised toward Christian Europe, we 
 Chinamen would be glad to hear ,of it. I am sure you will not find it in the ex- 
 peditions of Cortes or Pizarro, who, between them and in the name of your re- 
 ligion, butchered several millions of the peaceful and inoifensive inhabitants 
 of Mexico and Peru, and reduced the remainder to the cruel slavery of the 
 mines. Nor is it to be found in the annals of the Thirty Years War, nor in the 
 records of the Inquisition. 
 
 But it is not to invite such comparisons these episodes of history have been 
 introduced. My object is a higher one. This is to compare the military power 
 and resources of C^ina and Western Europe at three critical periods of their 
 intercourse — at the period of the Chinese invasions of the thirteenth century, at 
 the opening of maritime commerce by Europeans in the sixteenth century, 
 and at the present 1,ime. 
 
 When the hosts of Batu Khan overlooked the Adriatic Sea, they were 
 clad in steel armor and mounted upon fleet horses. Their arms consisted of the 
 sword, battle-ax, mace, bow-gun, and culverin. With the exception of the 
 pieces used by the Arabs in Spain, who had obtained a knowledge of gun- 
 powder from China, through commercial channels, these culverins were the 
 only artillery in Europe. In a word, the arms and accoutrements of the Chi- 
 nese were at that period vastly superior to those throughout Europe generally; 
 the nunabers of their armies were far greater, and their discipline was per- 
 fect; and as to their prowess, this is attested by their conquests, and still more 
 
4 Why Should the Chinese Go ? 
 
 by the almost entire silence of European history concerning them. 
 
 At this period, save in Mohammedan Spain, Western Europe was steeped in. 
 poverty, ignorance and despair. Its civilization had been long decaying j its 
 population had dwindled from sixty millions,in the time of the Antonines to thirty 
 millions when the Inquisition was established. Society had become so de- 
 ,'based that in the eleventh century human beings were employed as a oir- 
 ' culating medium in Britian, and the prifte of a man was less than that of a hawk. 
 In the twelfth century, and as a sign of his superiority, Pope Celestine kicked 
 the crown off the head of the Emperor, Henry VI. Kings then lived in huts, 
 and peasants in holes in^ the ground, where they slept with the pigs; The com- 
 I mon garment was a sheepskin, which was worn through life. That of Thomas S. 
 / Becket had to be peeled from off his back after he died. Woolen garments 
 were worn at a later date, and at first only by the feudal lords and their prin- 
 cipal retainers. As for undergarments, these were only known to the Arabs. 
 The continent was divided into a great many petty kingdoms — in France 
 alone there were twenty-nine, each with its own dynasty and history — and each 
 kingdom into an infinite number of feudatories. The kings were mere figure- 
 heads; the real power lay locally with the feudal lords, and oontinentally 
 with the .Pope. Indulgences were bought and sold in open day; the grossest 
 sensuality prevailed, and every tendency toward progression was smothered in 
 the folds of a soi'didecclesiasticism and a profligate aristocracy. 
 
 In a word, in the thirteenth century, China stood at the height of her power 
 and magnificence; Europe at the lowest point of her decadence. Magna Charta 
 was not written until 1215, and had to be confirmed about fifty times during three 
 centuries before its reforms were assured. Coal — that illimitable reservoir of 
 mechanical force, which has subverted the relations and revolutionized the 
 history of races — was not discovered in Newcastle until 1239, nor made an 
 article of traffic until 1381. Xhe Crusades, the invention of gunpowder and 
 printing — ^both obtained from China — the discovery of America, the reforma- 
 tion, in short all of those causes or influences to which the civilization of 
 Modern Europe has been variously ascribed, had yet to occur, When these 
 did occur Europe rose to power, whilst at the same time, China, from causes in- 
 to which I need not enter here, fell into decay. We have seen how China behaved 
 toward Europe when the latter was at her mercy. We have next to trace the 
 attitude of Europe toward China upon the opening of Oriental commerce and 
 isince that time — that is to say, ever since Europe has become the stronger. 
 This exchange of conditions had partly occured before the Portuguese rounded 
 the Cape of Good Hope. At this period China was in a decaying and feudal 
 eondition, while the causes referred to were soon to Infuse fresh life, vigor, 
 and resources into Europe. It was the Europeans who were now better armed and 
 equipped. Their ships, their artillery, their small arms, were all better than 
 ours. We shall presently see what use they made of them. 
 ^ Meanwhile let us rapidly glance at the condition of the Celestial Empire. It 
 I was, as I have stated, in a feudal condition, and so, in a great measure, it con- 
 / tinues to this day. Although the just pride of the Emperor will not permit 
 j him to admit the fact, his power over the numerous provinces, islands, and 
 / vassal and tributary states, which compose his dominion, is far from complete. 
 ^-f Europeans do not appear to understand this condition of affairs; yet it has 
 had much to do with their misunderstandings of my countrymen. The for- 
 eigners who have at various times sought and obtained imperial permission to 
 trade at certain ports of China, supposed, perhaps, when this permission was ob- 
 tained, that they had a complete right to trade. But this was by no means fol- 
 lowed. There remained to be obtained the permission of the feudatory or 
 local authorities of the territory in which the trading was to be done. This 
 permission was not always sought after, and forcible attempts were made to 
 trade without it — attempts that invariably gave rise to further misunderstand- 
 ings. 
 
Why Should the Chinese Go? 5 
 
 As ^udalism of the type now existing in China has been long since 
 extinguished in Europe, it is difficult to illustrate the injustice of; these 
 attempts , by reference to any government arrangements that now exist' in the 
 Western World. The best simile I can thinlt of would be furnished by an effort 
 on the part of foreigners to lay a railroad through the United States under a 
 charter from the Federal Government, and without permission froai the 
 States. But, after all, the resemblance between feudalism and federalism is 
 very faint. Happily for Americans the Federal Government possesses sufficient 
 military strength to keep the States in subordination, and the States suffi- 
 cient respect for the Federal Constitution not to defy its authority; but such is 
 not the case in China, nor has it been for several centuries. The great vas-- 
 sals of the empire divide much of its power between them; sometinjes they 
 even create the Emperor. 
 
 It was in the year 1498 that the Portuguese, under Vasco de Gama, made 
 their WKy around the Cape. In 1510, under Albuquerque, they treacherbusly 
 seized the Bast Indian city of Goa, and leaving a garrison in it, sailed away to 
 Malacca, which they had seen and coveted in 1608. This great city they 
 treacherously and piratically captured. The superiority of their arms will be 
 understood when it is stated that this act was committed by only 8 Portuguese 
 assisted by two hundred Malabar natives. They plundered Malacca of '' a 
 booty so enormous that theiNjuinto, or fifth, of the King of Protugal amounted 
 to 200,000 gold cruzadoes, a sum equivalent to $5,000,000," exclusive of 
 ships, naval stores, artillery, and other property. Malacca was at that time 
 a vassal state of the Chinese Empire, and our first acquaintance with mari- 
 time Europe was, therefore, begun on its part by the greatest act of 
 piracy the world has ever witnessed. Pizarro's plundering of Peru, committed 
 a few years later, was nothing compared with it. Hearing at Malacca of the 
 great Chinese cities to the northeast, and hoping, no doubt, to pillage them as 
 his companions had pillaged Goa and Malacca, one of the Portuguese, Eaphael 
 Perestralo, sailed away in a junk to view our coast. Finding the Chinese bet- 
 ter prepared for pirates than he expected, he returned to Malacca. 
 
 Tlie result of this reconnoisauoe was that a pretended " embassy " was dis- 
 patched from Lisbon in 1518, under Ferdinand Andrada, to treat with the 
 Emperor of China for permission to trade. Andrada, the first European to 
 land at a seaport of China, appeared off the harbor of Canton in the same 
 year, and was allowed to disembark and to send an envoy to the Emperor at 
 Peking. This envoy, whose name was Thomas Perez, was kindly received, 
 loaded with presents, and accorded the favors he sought. He at once visited all 
 the sea-coast town, and after a rapid survey of them returned to Canton and 
 joined his colleague Andrada. Meanwhile, Andrada's brother, Simon, appeared 
 off the coast in command of a piratical squadron, pillaging the inhabitants and 
 seizing young Women. He then built a fort on the Island of Taywan and ex- 
 torted money from every vessel bound to or from Canton; not supposing but that 
 his brother Ferdinand was on board of his own ship and safe from Chinese 
 reprisal. Thus it appeared that this band of " embassadors" were nothing but 
 a lot of adventurers and out-throats, whose sole object was plunder and 
 rapine. So soon as their doings became known, Perez and Andrada were seized 
 in Canton, tried and condemned to pay a, fine, and to leave the country — a 
 mild punishment for their great offenses. Pending the payment of this fine a 
 subject of the Sultan of Malacca arrived at Peking, and related the story of the 
 pillage of that town by the Portuguese. The true character of these _ scoun- 
 drels was now clear beyond a doubt. They were again seized, this time on 
 charges of high treason, and condemned to death; their lives being offered 
 them on condition of restoring Malacca. Failing to do this, they were all 
 executed in 1523. 
 
 1 have related the particulars of this, our first transaction with natives of mari- 
 time Europe because it is a type of ail the others that followed from that time 
 
6 Why Should the Chinese Go ? 
 
 until the opium war of 1842. The naval commanders of the sixteenth century 
 were little more than pirates, and so long as they succeeded in flUlng the royal 
 treasuries of Europe with gold and silver, their sovereigns were quite ready to 
 close their eyes as to the means by which this wealth was acquired. Such was 
 the character of Albuquerque, Andra4a, Cortes, Pizarro, Sir John Hawkins, 
 Sir Francis Drake, Sir Henry Morgan, and numerous others. The Portu- 
 guese, the Dutch, and the Knglish came to Chma, as the Spaniards had 
 visited Mexco and Peru, and as the English afterward visited 
 the West India Islands, the Spanish Main, and the East Indies— to plun- 
 der it. At first we did not suspect them of such designs, and_ being 
 especially a peaceful and commercial people, we listened to their pro- 
 posals of trade, and threw the whole country open to them. It was only after 
 repeated evidences had convinced us that they designed to treat China as they 
 had treated Spanish America and Hindostan that we adopted that policy of 
 restriction which afterwatd came to be looked upon, however erroneously, as 
 essentially Chinese. The real fact of the matter is that we desired to trade even 
 more strongly than you did, only, observing that your guns were heavier and 
 your men stronger than ours, that your traders were little better than bandits, 
 and your naval commanders a parcel of swashbucklers, we deemed it prudent 
 to conduct this trade solely at Macao and Canton,'Vhere. confined to limited 
 distficts and to ithe management of the Hongs, it might not be used as a means 
 of gaining entrance to the country, and of tampering with our vassal states, as 
 had been done in Mexico, Peru and Hindostan. 
 
 Perhaps you may think that the Chinese question in California has little to do 
 with all this. Well, we shall see. The trouble about the Chinese question is 
 that it has been hitherto been viewed from too low and narrow a standpoint. 
 It has been forgotten that nations have histories, and that their relations toward 
 one another are not to be determined altogether by present or local consid- 
 erations. This may not be perceptible to my friends of the sand-lot, who, as 
 worlfingmen, inspire my respect, while as historians and logicians they excite 
 only my amusement. But it will be perceived the moment it comes to be 
 practicaly decided, and it may then be too late to discuss the matter. For 
 this reason, and because a peaceful solution of this question is desirable, both 
 for your people and ours, I prefer, with your honorable permission, to discuss 
 it now. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 To THE Argonaut: — In my last communication I showed that, when, in the 
 thirteenth century, China was superior to Europe in population, civilization, and 
 arms, and that although she was able to, and did march half a million of well 
 equipped men to the shores of the Adriatic, she paused there out of respect 
 for Christianity and the social progress of mankind, and led her vast hosts back 
 to their distant homes without molesting the West. I showed, also, when, 
 in the sixteenth century, these conditions of strength had become revei-sed — 
 when China had become the weaker and Europe the stronger— what bad use the 
 latter made of its superiority, and how nothing short of rigorous exolusiveness 
 on our part could have saved our country from being desolated by European 
 arms and enslaved by European adventurers. 
 
 It will not do for you to claim that you Europeans had no intentions of this 
 sort; for history would belie you. What was Columbus' objective point when 
 he sailed to the West ? Cathay, that far famed China, whose riches had been 
 portrayed in the glowing pages of Marco Polo. To his dying day the great 
 Captain supposed the shores of Hispaniola were those of Cathay, and that he 
 had only to explore farther in order to rOach the civilized portions of that 
 vast empire. AVhat land did the Spaniards suppose they were upon when they 
 
Why Should the Chinese Go? 7 
 
 ravaged the Mexican Empire ? Oliina. It was always Obina of whioli you were 
 in search, and had you found it, there can be no doubt that you would have 
 ■despoiled it as you despoiled the lands which you mistook for it. , 
 
 Nor will it do for you Americans to claim exemption from reproach qn the 
 ground that these atrocious transactions were the work of other nations thaa 
 your own. You are all as one nation in your attitude toward China. When one 
 of you obtains a concession from the Imperial Government, no matter how un- 
 justly — witness the treaties after the wars of 1842 and 1858 — the others are 
 sure tb demand similar coneessiona. 
 
 When one of you gains an advantage from us, the others are Certain to 
 claim a similiar advantage. Because the Portuguese obtained a footing at 
 Macao, the British must have the Island of Hongkong, "When any misfortune 
 happens to us, you are all so eager to profit by it that you stand by one an- 
 other as a single body. Thus w'hen the Taiping rebellion threaten to subvert 
 the empire, your war-ships all swung coldly at their anchorages in our harbors, 
 like so many vultures waiting for their prey to expire ; and so far from offering 
 to help us, you helped the rebels. More than this, you took advantage of the oc- 
 casion to make war upon us. I do not blame you, I merely state a fact. You 
 are united by the bonds of a religion which you fancy to be the source of 
 your greatness, and to be filled with a promise of more. The Spanish con- 
 quistadores used, to carry the symbol of this faith in front of their armies; 
 modern Europe more discreetly smuggles it into the " most favored nation" 
 clause of its treaties with China. 
 
 The inferiority of our arms to yours at the period of our early maritime 
 intercourse is evinced, not only by the easy fall of Malacca, but also by the faet- 
 that, chief among the goods we used to purchase of you, were European, mus- 
 kets. It is also proved during the bombardment of our ports in the opium war, 
 when the British found our batteries to coi^tain only castriron three-pounders, 
 and sometimes only representations of guns painted on canvas. 
 
 When we came to acquire a knowledge of European arms, and the way to 
 make them, the fear , of invasion and subjection became lessened; but it has, 
 never wholly passed away, nor can it pass away until China wholly emerges, 
 from that feudal condition in which she still lingers. This condition is one 
 of peril to her imperial autonomy. The efforts of the central government have 
 to be continually exercised to keep the great feudatories in subjection. When 
 I state that there are lords in China who own greater domains, and are more 
 wealthy, than any individual in Christendom, whilst the people are extremely, 
 poor, you will understand me. For instance, when Prince Kesheri was con- 
 demned in 1841 for having suffered defeat in the opium war, there was con- 
 fiscated of his property $7,500,000 jn gold, $2,667,000 in silver, and other goods 
 worth still more — in all about $25,000,000 worth. A country whose' lords are 
 thus rich is easily subdued. Her millions of soldiers count for nothing, be- 
 cause they belong to the feudatories, and these may be easily divided, by a 
 crafty foe. Witness the operations of Cortes in Mexico and Clive in India. _ 
 
 Erom these facts and considerations; from the absence on our part of hostility, 
 toward European civilization, as evinced by our forbearance toward you, when, 
 in the thirteenth century, we were tlie stronger ; from the existence on your 
 part of hostility toward our civilization, as eyinced by the bad use you made 
 <jf your superiority, when, in the sixteenth century, you had become the 
 stronger; from the feudal condition of our empire and the fear entertained by 
 our government even now, when our weapons are the same as yours, thS,t » ' 
 <3hina may be conquered and reduced by you as have been Mexico, Peru 
 and India — from these facts and considerations, I say, we would much prefer 
 to have no dealings with you: we would rather close our ports and main- 
 ta,i^ a policy of entire isolation from the European world. 
 
 The trouble with Europe, however, is that such a policy would not suit its 
 interests. You desire to possess every conceivable privilege of trade, resideuoe, 
 
8 Why Should the Chinese Go ? 
 
 reli^on, etc., for Americans in China, whilst you wonld deny all of them to 
 Chinamen in America. And this brings us directly to the Chinese question in 
 California. 
 
 Let it be fully understood at the outset that we Chinese have never sought to 
 obtain leave for our people to live in your countries, exceptas a counterpoise 
 to a similar permission first sought on your part. Nearly two thousand year* 
 before, a Chinaman ever settled in Europe, Europeans settled in China._ Nofc 
 only this — they were protected in their persons, their property and* their re- 
 ligion. Furthermore, the Emperor Tienpan, went so far as to build a Christian 
 church for Olopwen and to order it to be supported out of the public coffers.- 
 And this was five hundred years before Christianity was introduced even into 
 lome parte of Europe — ^for example, Russia. 
 
 When the elder Polos visited us, we treated them well. They remained with 
 us for more than fifteen years, and then departed freely, carrying away great- 
 wealth. When Marco Polo came, he was similarly treated. He remained 
 twenty years, and when he departed, which he did at his own request, he- 
 was loaded with presente and other favors. During all this dme we sent none' 
 of our people to Europe. It was you always that sought permission to dwell 
 with us, whilst we never came to you. And observe what you gained by it. Yon 
 took frov us the inventions of the mariners' compass, sails for ships, rudders, 
 gunpowder, paper, printing, and many other useful things. All these came to 
 you from China, either by the hands of the Arabs, or, later on, with the expe- 
 ditions of Genghis Khan or Batu Khan, or through the Polos, — for these inven- 
 tions were not known to Europe in the Middle Ages, whilst they had been long 
 lued in our country. 
 
 When, at a later period, the western nations made their way to our ports,, 
 it was they who came to us and sought permission for their merchants, an* 
 ^.artisans to dwell among us, not we who desired to send colonists to you. The- 
 ' whole burden, of the negotiations sought by European nations with the Impe- 
 rial Court has been — permission to live in China. In these negotiations, 
 Americans have ever been foremost. You sent Mr. Caleb Gushing to us in 
 1844, Mr. Beed in 1853, and Mr. Burlingame in 1867. When the last named'' 
 gentleman resigned from your diplomatic service to enter ours, and effected the 
 treaty that goes by his name, he was rewarded by you for his part in the tran- 
 saction with the highest enconiums and the warmest welcome. 
 
 Let me read you two or three clauses from this treaty. 
 
 Article YI. guarantees every pri-vilege and complete protection to Americans in China, and 
 this is carried bo far that Article I, forbids the employment of the foreign establishments oa 
 the Coast of China — fbr example, the Portuguese establishment at Macao, the British Island 
 of Hongkong, etc.— as a means of aggression against the United States, in case of a war be- 
 tween that country and Portugal, or Great Britain, etc. 
 
 Article ly. grants entire freedom of religion, protection of sepnltore, eto,, and Article 'VII. 
 Uie ri^ht to establish their own schools, etc., to Americans in China. 
 
 Article *¥!. confers equal rights upon Chinamen in the United States 
 
 f Under these articles a numerous body of your citizens have established them- 
 
 I selves in China, possessed themselves of the coasting trade, and 
 
 many other branches of navigation and traCSc, and thus deprived 
 
 I thousands of Chinamen of employment. The complaints of these poor 
 
 ■ people are not conveyed to you, because our government has too 
 
 much-respect for its .treaty _sbligati_onstoj)ernijt,y-OH-^o be-annoyed- with, any 
 
 expression of regret concerning the working of its compacts with you. On the 
 
 other hand, while the profite of which the Chinese coast and river junk-trade 
 
 have been deprived, by American, steamers, go to swell the dividends of your 
 
 navigation companies and afford employment to your maritime classes, your 
 
 shipbuilders, and your machinists; yonr newspapers are filled and your halls 
 
 of legislation resound, with outcries against Chinese labor in America. 
 
 Thus it appears that the United States maintains precisely the same 
 position in respect to China that the other European nations do. You 
 
Why Should the Chinese Go? g 
 
 all desire to possess advantages in China, -which, at the same time, you 
 would deny to Chinamen in America. You have bombarded our ports and 
 forced us into an unwilling commerce -with you, -which now you desire shall 
 be entirely one-sided. Your reason for this unfairness is not a sordid one. 
 You are clear-headed enough to perceive that the benefit to commercial inte r- 
 course cannot be unilateiaX. But you fancy that the advantages to social 
 intercourse may be monopolized by one party. You will not permit us to -, 
 shut ourselves up. You demand every privilege for Americans in China, but i 
 you would deny the same privileges to Chinamen in America, because, in your j 
 opinion, the presence of the Chinese amongst you is a menace to your civiliza- '/ 
 tion. You shrink from contact with us, not because you regard us as men- / 
 tally or bodily inferior — for neither fact nor argument wUl support you here — | 
 but rather because our religious code appears to be different from yours, and 1 
 because we are deemed to be more abstemious in food, clothing and shelter. /. 
 
 If our religious forms, our daily bill of fare, and our demands for wages 
 were the same as yours, it would be difficult to see what grievance, either real 
 or fanciful, you would hive to complain about. Since you profess in your 
 political constitution, your pulpit declamations, and, more thari all, in your 
 manner of living, that you are not bigoted and care nothing for religious forms, 
 the menace to your civilization appears to resolve itself into a fear of losing 
 your accustomed roast beef, white shirt-collars, and carpeted housed. It is a 
 menace to the sensual indulgences to which yoy have been accustomed during 
 the last three centuries — that is to say, since the opening of sea trade to the 
 Orient. 
 
 There is a significance in this coincidence, to which, in another place I shall 
 have occasion to allude more fully. Mean-vyhile, let Us agree upon the grounds 
 of your hostility to the Chinese in California. I say it is chiefly the fear of 
 your having to descend (as you would regard it) to your notion of the Chinese 
 level of subsistence — rice, one suit of clothes, and bare walls. This is the 
 substance of your 1300-page Eeport of the Joint Special Committee to inves- 
 tigate Chinese Imigration. If it is anything else, 1 shall be glad to shift the 
 issue with you. 
 
 Treating this as the essence of the Chinese question, let us see what there is 
 in it. Substantially, Asia desires seclusion from the European world; sub- 
 stantially, Europe desires commerce with Asia. In India this commerce is 
 carried on by force. In China and Japan, because you cannot employ forde, 
 you desire to so arrange it that, while the commercial benefits may be mutual, 
 the social advantages, as you regard them, may all be on your side. You in- 
 sist upon trade with China, but you want no contact with her people, for fear 
 of their pagan influence and their economical mode of living. Can you be 
 gratified in both respects P Impossible. 
 
 The same God that made you, 'made us; the same inexorable laws of nature 
 that govern you, govern us. Foremost among these laws is that of gravita- 
 tion. When a substance falls to the earth, the earth rises at the same time to 
 the substance. All action and reaction are reciprocal. This law holds good 
 throughout the physical world; it also holds good throughout the moral and 
 political world. Nature forbids one-sided arrangements. If you must trade 
 with China, you must come in contact with Chinamen and be subjected to the 
 influence of Chinese morality and Chinese civilization. The influence may 
 be small, may be remote, may be inappreciable — as is the rise of the earth 
 toward falling substances — but it must take place, and neither you nor we can 
 help it. You may drive us out of California, but we shall influence your 
 social affairs all the same. The goods that we now manufacture in San Fran- 
 cisco will be fabricated in Canton; and, no matter how high you may raise 
 your tariff, you will walk in Canton shoes, wear Canton shirts, smoke Canton 
 cigars, and shoot each other with Canton revolvers and gunpowder; for we 
 
10 Why Should ihe Chinese Go T 
 
 \ 
 
 can make all of these articles cheaper than you can. 
 , If you have debauched us with opium, we have got even with you by 
 f acquiring your mechanical arts; and henceforth, unless Europe and Asia shaU 
 fiill back upon a now impossible scheme of strict non-inteicourse,_ their 
 fortunes must go together. If, as you believe, your civilization is superior to 
 ours, it will have to fell a little in order that ours may rise a great dealj and 
 this must take place whether the few Chinese now in California shall remain 
 or not. It is God's law, aud can not be averted. It is the means by which 
 He has and will, continue to slowly knit together the diverse threads of all 
 human life. 
 
 In my next and final letter I propose to show how mistaken you are in re- 
 garding your civilization as, on the whole, superior to ours; and, on the con- 
 trary, how much your civilization owes to ours, and how rapidly it would 
 decay without the support which our civilization aifords it, even at the present 
 time. After this I will endeavor to draw a picture of what California would 
 be were the Chinese driven from it, and to justify this delineation will refer to 
 the expulsion of the Moors fro.m ' Spain and the Chinese from Manila. And 
 when I shall have done this, I will rest my case. 
 
 Let me in this place, however, endeavor to correct one great misapprehen- 
 sion in respect to the Chinaman. You are continually objecting to his moralitv. 
 Your travelers say he is depraved; your missionaries call hi^i ungodly; your 
 commissioners call him uncleanly; and your aans culottes call him everything 
 that is vile. Yet your housewives permit him to wait upon them at table; 
 they admit him to their bed-chambers; they confide to him their garments and 
 jewels; and even trust their lives to him, by awarding.him supreme control 
 over their kitchens and the preparation of their food. There is a glaring con- 
 tradiction here. 
 
 The plain truth ia, that what you have regarded as evidences of immorality 
 and depravity are simply evidences of indigence and misery. China is in a 
 feudal condition. Her nobles are enormously rich and powerful; . her peas- 
 ants are extremely poor and wretched. The unpleasant things which your, 
 travelers and missionaries have observed in China, are not common to China- 
 men. They have never been observed in connection with rich Chinamen. 
 They are peculiar only to poverty. They belong to the miserable — to the mis- 
 erable of all countries. What Mr. Griffia-, in his recent chapter on the "Heart 
 of Japan," says of that country, is true also of China: the peasantry are very 
 poor. The nakedness of the towns, of the houses, of the people, their scant 
 fare, their degradation — which were only to be fully perceived when he reached 
 the interior of the country — made him exclaim, with disappointment: "I began 
 to realize the utter poverty and wretchedness of the people and the country of 
 Japan" (p. 415).. Yet everywhere he found some education and abundance of 
 good nature (p. 420). 
 
 It is the same in China. The nobles are the richest in the world; the peas- 
 ants are the poorest. What little of the latter's habits and srrroundings has 
 proved repulsive to Occidental eyes, is the result, not of inferior morality, but 
 of inferior wealth. The European peasant was in the same condition three 
 centuries ago, and in some oountries^or example, Russia, Eastern Germany, 
 Roumania, Ireland, and parts of Italy and Portugal — he is very nearly in a 
 similar' condition to-day". Yet you not only tolerate him in America, you 
 share with him your politipal privileges; you admit him, to social communion; 
 he is yonr brother; while the poor Chinaman you would drive away . with 
 blows and contumely. What if it should appear that, after all, there was 
 nothing defensible beneath your hatred of Chinamen but ignorance and 
 religious bigotry J Where would then stand the bases of your vauiited civil- 
 ization ? , • /. . . , . : , 
 
 The slender fare of rice and'the other economical habits of the peasant class, 
 
Why Should the Chinese Go? 1 1 
 
 which are so objectionable to your lower orders and the demagogues who 
 trumpet their clamors, are not the result of choice to Chinamen; they follow 
 poverty. The hard-working, patient servants you have about you to-day, 
 love good fare as well as other men, but they are engaged in a work far higher 
 than the gratification of self-indulgence; they are working to liberate their 
 parents in China from the thraldom of feudal villeinage, and so long as their 
 labor continues to strike off the fetters from their beloved ones will they con- 
 tinue to practice their noble self-abnegation. When this emancipation is 
 complete, you will find the Chinaman as prone as any human creature to fill 
 his belly and cover his back with good things. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 To The Akoonaxjt: — The- limits to which these letters restrict me are a 
 great source of embarrassment. I am forced to outline the story of twenty 
 centuries of intercourse, three of which have been active and bear immediately 
 upon the present question, in the course of a few columns. I must compare 
 Christianity with Buddhism, an allodial civilization with a feudal one, and 
 strike a balance between two worlds with the dash of a pen. It is not a. cause 
 that I am.to defend; it is a miracle that I rtiust accomplish. 
 
 Let me begin this letter with the religious question. Is it the religion of the 
 Chinese residents in America of which you complain ? What right have you 
 to do this, with freedom of religion guaranteed in your Federal and State con- 
 stitutions and a hundred monstrous sects flourishing in your midst and pro- 
 tected by your laws ? There are more Shakers than Buddhists, more Mormons 
 than Confucians, in your country; and, while the latter keep their religion to 
 themselves, the former flaunt theirs, with all its repulsive features, in the face 
 of your moral code, which it flatly insults. Do you complain of Chinese 
 morality ? In what respect is your code superior to ours ? What duty does 
 it commend which ours disregards? What virtue does it inculcate which ours 
 neglects ? Or do you complain of the practical behavior of Chinamen, re- 
 gardless of religion or moral code ? Let their industry, their peaceful manners, 
 their resignation to insult and contumely, be your answer. 
 
 You say that your civilization is superior to ours, and that it must not be 
 degraded by contact with us. When your twenty discordant writers, Volney, 
 Burke, Guizot, Mackinnon, Colquhon. Buckle, Spencer, Draper, and the rest, 
 agree upon what civilization means, we shall be better ahle to reply to 'you. 
 With us, civilization indicates a given condition of society, combined with the 
 direction and velocity of its movement from that condilion to another. The 
 condition, we regard as due to physical resources; the movement and its velo- 
 city, to the struggle between those resources and the population which has to 
 subsist upon them. At times, population gets the upper hand of nature; then 
 civilization advances. At others, nature gets the better of population; then 
 civilization decays. We are an old nation and have seen many of these 
 changes; but we have neither forgotten justice nor charity to others when they 
 favored, nor begged indulgence from others, when they went against us. 
 When, in the days of Genghis Khan, our name was a terror to Western Eu- 
 rope, we took no advantage of you and imposed upon you no yoke. Now 
 that we are engaged in so desperate a struggle against liature that, during the 
 past few years, millions of human beings have expired from starvation within 
 pur borders, we ask no favors from you. Whatever you may think of our 
 civilization, violence and force form no portions of its basis. Its foundations — 
 however rudely capped— are laid in justice, and mercy, and toleration. 
 
 But what is this Western civilization of which you boast so loudly ? Had 
 it any history previous to the opening of the sea route to China ? Pause a 
 
1 2 Why Should the Cninese Go ? 
 
 moment. Be just. Reflect. When you shall hare caught the clue to such a 
 history, let us be apprized. But we believe you will fail. You will remem,- 
 ber that we happen to know something of Europe in the thirteenth century, 
 and to-day our histories can tell more of this obscure period than yours. We 
 have our own theory concerning the sources of your present greatness. We 
 ascribe it, in part, to your gains from the piratical conquest, enslavement, and 
 murderous extinction of the American races, but chiefly to the profitable trade 
 with the Orient. From the opening of this trade to 1640, when the Portuguese 
 were driven from Japan, and the British first acquired termtory' in Hindostan, 
 three of your nations alone took a thousand millions of specie from Asia; 
 two-thirds as much as they wrung from all America during the same period. 
 Prom Malacca, alone, they took twenty-five millions; from Japan, up to the 
 date mentioned, four hundred millions; from India and China other vast sums. 
 These nations were Spain, Portugal, and Holland. You , imported calicoes 
 £;om India, rice and silk from China, copper from Japan, spices from the 
 Islands; and you sent, in return, woolens, iron-wares, and other northern fab- 
 rics. Every Western nation had its East India, or Oriental company, whose 
 profits upon each voyage varied from forty to three hundred per cent. When 
 you could not trade, you robbfed; and your pirates, whose atrocities your mon- 
 archs not only connived at, but rewarded, despoiled our seas and ravaged our 
 coasts. These profits and spoils gaye rise to those industries which furnish 
 the present support to your boasted civilization; they invoked those industrial 
 classes, which before them had no existence in Europe, and whose emergence 
 from feudal vassalage forms the history of your liberties. In a word, your 
 civilization is indebted to ours for all there is of it to which you dare to refer; 
 and it stUl depends so largely upon the Oriental trade, which amounts in value 
 to $1,000,000,000 per annum, and employs ten million tons of western 
 shipping — more than one-half of which is with China alone — that if this trade 
 were destroyed, through your illiberality to Chinamen, there can be little 
 risk in predicting that your civilization would sustain the severest blow to 
 which, practically, it is liable to be subjected. During the palmy days of the 
 Oriental trade your physical resources exceeded the wants of your population; 
 you grew, took to the consumption of luxuries, and have now become proud, 
 insolent, and unjust. At the present time, although the Oriental trade is 
 greater than ever, competition has reduced its profits to a minimum; your 
 population in Europe and America, grown from forty millions to four hundred 
 millions, is fast outstripping your productive resources, and you can not afford 
 to dispense with atay of them that you possess — least of all with so important 
 a oncias the Chinese trade. Abandon that, and your fate as a progressive 
 civilization is sealed; and, as things which do not grow, decay, so will the day 
 dawn when, not the Zealander, but the Chinaman, will arise to muse over your 
 ruined cities, and recall the ingratitude and folly that precipitated your fall. 
 
 Driven from your place in the ranks of a civilization whose greatness you 
 now perpetually boast, you may meanly seek as Americans to escape the fate 
 hat threatens to overtake you as Europeans. You may cry let European civili- 
 zation decay if it will; our concern is with the United States; aauve qui peut ! 
 In vain; you must fall, as you have risen, with the rest. If, meaner still, you 
 entrench yourselves on the narrow strip of land between the Sierra and the 
 ocean and resolve, as Califoinians, to pursue a policy which you fear to avow 
 as Americans, let me show you what will happen. And here I appeal not to 
 philosophy, but to history, which seems better fitted to the scope of Western 
 minds. 
 
 In 1S65 the Spaniards in Mexico — the same men who discovered and colo- 
 nized California — sent a fleet to the Philippine Islands, which they captured 
 and occupied. Under assurances of protection from these marauders a con- 
 sideable number of Chinamen were induced to reside upon the islands, which, 
 
Wky Should the Chinese Go? 13 
 
 ■under the effects of their industry and enterprise, became as rich and produc- 
 tive as before they had been poor and barren. In 1602 there were upward of 
 twenty thousand Oainese in Manila, whilst the number of Spaniards did not 
 exceed eight hundred. There never had been the slightest disturbance be- 
 tween them. The Chinese were hard workers, who meddled with nobody. 
 The Spaniards rode about on horseback, enjoying the fruits of the Chinamen's 
 labor and living like lords; and yet they were not satisfied. They wanted to 
 Tob the Chinamen of the little they had managed to save under the hard condi- 
 tions of their life. The Spaniards met together in secret, planned a massacre 
 of the Chinese, and carried out this atrocious design with si^ch expedition, 
 that, in the course of a few months, but few of the twenty thousand victims 
 were left alive. The marauders then divided the spoils they had gained, and 
 rejoiced in the name of civilization and religion. Thirty-seven years later, a 
 new generation of Chinamen having arisen, who were ignorant or careless of 
 what had occurred before, some thirty-three thousand of my countrymen 
 gradually found their way to Manila. Precisely the same thing happened as 
 before. The Spaniards, coveting the wretched gains of the Chinese, Jilanned 
 their massacre, and slaughtered twenty- tWo thousand of them in four months, 
 with a loss on their own side of but three hundred and thirty (Martin's 
 History of China, I, 378.) From that moment the Philippines decayed and 
 sunk to nothing. In 1762, when Sir William Draper captured Manila from 
 Spain, his most numerous and eager allies were the Chinese. It was a punish- 
 ment and a retribution to the Spaniards. 
 
 Did the Philippines decay because the Chinese had been driven from them ? 
 Yes. But let us glance at the story of the Moorish expulsion from Spain be- 
 fore we dig down to those reasons which so nearly concern the present welfare 
 of California and the Pacific slope of America. 
 
 At the time that Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, Spain had a 
 population of 21,000,000; Castile had 11,000,000; Aragon, 7,000,000; 
 Granada, 3,000,000. A large proportion of the inhabitants of Castile and 
 Aragon, and all of those in Granada, were Moors or Jews. The former were 
 the agriculturists of the peninsula ; the latter the manufacturers and merchants. 
 The conquest had been aided by fanaticism, and the impersonators of this ele- 
 ment claimed for their reward the expulsion of the Moors and Jews,. No 
 sooner said than done. The fiat went forth, and in the same year that Amer- 
 ica was discovered by Columbus, the kingdom of Spain was closed to the 
 heretics. A million of them were driven forth. Some professed Christianity 
 and remained until 1610, when they, too, were cast out. Others of the pro- 
 scribed fled to freer lands, so that in 1594 the entire population left in Spain 
 was but 8,206,791. The kingdom was a wreck, and despite the magnificent 
 conquest of America, despite the gold and silver wrung from the Indians and 
 the monopoly of the Colonial trade, which was maintained until the period of 
 the Mexican and South American revolutions, it never recovered the loss thus 
 sustained. It is only within the past twenty-five years that Spain has been 
 again enabled to hold up her head among the nations of the world ; only since 
 the time when she has decreed religious toleration and blotted out from her 
 history the bloody and detestable crime which she committed three centuries 
 ago. The cry raised against the Moors in Spain and the Chinese in Manila 
 was the same: paganism, filth, leprosy, a lower civilization. It was false in 
 both cases, as it is in the present case of California. The real ofiense was that 
 the hated races were more abstemious and economical than the race in power, 
 and much as you may endeavor to conceal it from the world and from your- 
 selves, this is the offense of the Chinamen in California. , Are not your sam 
 culottes destroying your harvesters and other labor-saving machinery f Do 
 they not murder those of their own number who are satisfied to accept lower 
 swages than the leaders choose to demand ? 
 
14 Why Should the Chinese Go? 
 
 I believe that I have said enough to show why the Chinese should not go. 
 It is only necessary to advert to the enormpus interests which they have built 
 up in this country to make it clear that they can not go ; and I may add that 
 if it becomes necessary tor them to appeal to all Christendom,;and even to arms, 
 against your injustice, they are prepared to do so. They did not seelc Western 
 intercourse ; thoy did not ask for the Burlingarae treaty ; but now that both 
 have been thrust upon them they are determined that both shall be respected. 
 They willno_t be driven forth. It must sound strangely to hear a Chinaman 
 speak of resorting to arms to obtain the observance of a treaty. It is strange ; 
 but it is your method, the method of your boasted Western , civilization ; you 
 have taught it to us, and we shall employ it. It may, also, seem preposterous 
 on our part to speak of arms, when you believe that we have none. But here 
 you are mistaken. 
 
 During your civil war, a single Confederate cruiser whose operations in 
 Chinese waters were zealously aided by the British Consuls, and alarmingly 
 magnified by the reports of thfe British merchants in our ports, entirely swept 
 your comiperce from the Pacific Ocean. This, fact taught us two things: 
 Fii'St, the English are your rivals in trade, and would gladly ruin you ; second, 
 they are ready to sell war-ships, arms, and ammunition to your enemies. At 
 the present time they have a number of fine iron-clads which, being our 
 ftiends, they will be glad to sell to us, and. if needs be, show us how to han- 
 dle. The day that you become so weak and faithless as to give way to your 
 ignorant classes, and permit the torch and the dagger to drive us from your 
 shores, that day will see every resource of the Ta-Tsing empire put forfli to 
 punish you. Your commerce will be swept from the Pacific, perhaps forever; 
 it may even be seriously crippled on the Atlantic ; and you may then learn, 
 when too late, that China, though old and apathetic, is by no means dead or 
 powerless. 
 
 But pardon these threats. They are merely the ebullition of an injured 
 patriotism, an outraged sense of justice. We would be. your friends., not your 
 enemies. The oldest and the newest empires of the world, joined together in 
 the common cause of Free Trade, would furnish a spectacle whose sublimity 
 might form the Pharos to a new and higher civilization for a united world. 
 Disunited, warring with each other, and in war seeking for allies, with little 
 regard to the incongruity of the alliance, they would not only afford an un- 
 seemly spectacle, but they might involve each other in ruin and the world in a 
 desolation so wide-spread that its industrial rehabilitation may need the work 
 of I centuries. I have said it — the Chinese should not, cannot, will not go, 
 I will now show you that if they did,, it would be so much the worse for you — 
 aye, even for the very classes who are clamorous for their removal. What are 
 they doing here ? In a word, they are pursuing a nnmber of industries which, 
 ■without them, would have no existence at all on this coast. AH the evidence 
 in your Chinese Immigration Keport goes to prove that this is a correct 
 description of the class of vocations in which they are employed. The City 
 Assessor, who with binocular vision, finds 28,600 Chinese in this city, gives 
 their occupations as follows, the classification being my own : 
 
 (1) As domestics and waiihermen 7,2C0 
 
 (2) Asjnakersof clothtng, shoes and slippers '.6,2£0 
 
 (3) As makers of cigars and cigar -boxes. .3,150 
 
 (4) As fishermen, truck-farmers, and liucjiaters .3,700 
 
 ■ (5) As Chinese merchants, brokers, clerks, and porters, Chinese 
 
 restaurants, places of worship, and other purely Chinese 
 
 occupations ...4,150 
 
 (6) As rafit-pickers 600 
 
 , (7) In American manufactories, fruit-canning, -woolen mills, tan- 
 
 ' neries, matches, gunpowder mills, and brick yards 3,450 
 
 Total, 28 600 
 
Why Should the Chinese Go? 15 
 
 In the other towns of the State the Chinese are employed in similar voca- 
 tions. In the rural sections they pick nineteen-twentieths of the grape crop 
 (Rep., p. 1203). In the mining districts they work the placers tyhich white 
 men have long since abandoned. It is quite safe to say that if they were 
 driven from those industries not one of theiti would be continued. Let us look 
 at them seriatim : (l) Families, who would have to pay $25 to $40 a month, 
 Biddy's demand for housework, instead of the $10 or $15 with which John is 
 satisfied, would break up house-keeping, bScome their own domestics, or else 
 leave the country. The times are past when exceptionally high rates of wages 
 can be sustained. (2) The clothing, shoes, and slippers' now made here by 
 Chinamen would either be made in China, of British muslin, leather, etc, or 
 else manufactured in the East, and in either case imported to this coast. It is 
 entirely out of the question to imagine that these industries would be con- 
 tinued upon the Califbrnian workingiuen's wage-basis of $3 or $4 a day. The 
 general level of wages and prices and living has fallen far below such rates, 
 and neither intimidation nor violence can raise it. The workingmen them- 
 selves would have to leave the State, because the capitalists could no longer 
 afford to live here. (3) No one pretends that cigars can be made upon your 
 would-be basis of wages. Already most of the cigars consumed here, apart 
 from those made by Chinamen, are imported from New York. As for the 
 yarns about leprous Chinese cigar-makers, the finest cigars in the world, those 
 of Havanna, are all, without exception, made by Chinamen ; and this has been 
 the case for upwards of twenty years. (4) Fish caught and vegetables grown 
 by Chinamen are now sold in this market quite cheaply. Drive the Chinamen 
 away, and neither of these articles of food would be seen at any tables but 
 those of the rich. (5 and 6) It is presumed that' no one but Chinamen are 
 prepared to fill the places of these classes. (7) This is really the only class of 
 laborers who come into competition with the workingmen whom you admit to 
 citizenship. They are ready to retire at any moment in favor of the latter, 
 who are welcome to undertake the dangerous and offensive labors which the 
 Chinese now perform in those manufactories. 
 
 The settlement of California is due to its placer mines. 'While these were 
 prolific the country was prosperous, and high prices, high wages, and high 
 living was possible. To augment this prolifioity you invited Chinamen here, 
 and worked them for your own benefit. "When the placers were exhausted 
 some of you combined and turned your attention to quartz mines ; others to 
 wheat farming. The Chinese picked up a living by resorting to petty indus- 
 tries in which you could not compete with foreign or Eastern artisans, and 
 which you, therefore, could not have started. Now that the Chinamen have 
 built up these trades some of you would drive them away, hoping, no doubt, 
 to fill their places, and perhaps fill them at higher wages. How mean ! how 
 stupid ! The truth is that you can no more continue these industries after the 
 Chiiiamen are driven away than you can work a. hydraulic claim without pij*- 
 ing, -or a manufactory without steam. The Chinese are the labor-saving 
 machines that render these industries possible. Banish them and the indus- 
 tries will perish. Then will your coast be deserted and your working men 
 themselves forced to flee from it. They can not live upon quartz-mines and 
 seem to be averse to wheat farming. When they shall have raised the price of 
 living to what it was of yore, and shall find themselves, as they will, without 
 the placer mines which sustained it, they must either leave or starve. May 
 heaven guide them in their darkness. They have much need of light when 
 they regard the poor Chinaman, as being in their way; the truth, being that 
 without his aid in providing them with cheap food, clothing,, services, etc., 
 they would not be able to live here at all. 
 
 The same logic that would banish thb Chinese will destroy every labor-sav- 
 machine in the land. ' This would involve not merely the harvesting and sew- 
 
1 6 WAy Should the Chinese Go? 
 
 iag machines, but also the spade and the axe. The former in the hands of a 
 skilled husbandman will perform as much labor as could be done by a dozen 
 men with fingers and toes ; the latter, as much as could be effected by a hun- 
 dred men with their unaided teeth. These labor-saving implements, therefore, 
 displace so many honest workingmen, who may starve for lack of work. 
 Moreover, the spade and axe are non-consumers. They neither eat, drink, 
 nor wear clothes as Christians do. The spade has no religion ; the axe no 
 morals. The spade is a filthy instrument, groyeling among worms and putrid 
 bodies ; the axe has committed many bloody crimes. The sp?de cannot agi- 
 tate ; nor the axe vote. They are not allowed to perform the duties of citizen, 
 and are, therefore, unworthy of its privileges ; one of these being that of 
 remaining in the country. Many spades and axes come from Sheffield, and 
 nearly all others are made of British steel. They are, therefore, aliens, whose 
 presence here, and whose strange attributes form a standing threat to American 
 institutions. Your laws or customs do not permit them to mingle with your 
 people. No man may marry a spade ; no woman an axe. The very aspect of 
 these alien labor- saving machines is repulsive to you, The spade does not 
 wear a queue longer even than George Washington's, nor the axe excel Gene- 
 ral Grant in the smoking of narcotics ; but they both go stark naked, without 
 a stiip of clothing on them ; and what sight can be more offensive to civilized 
 eyes ? Then down with these labor-saving implements. Let the cry of every 
 tru? American be : The Spades and Axes Must Go ! 
 
 But this machine-smashing logic is not peculiar to California. The indus- 
 trial world of Christendom resounds with it. The same class of men who 
 burned the woolen frames at Lancashire are now breaking the reapers and 
 mowers of New York, the harvesters of Kansas, and the gang-plows of the 
 San Joaquin Valley, When Commodore Perry visited Japan he carried ashore 
 a miniature railway, a telegraph, a harvester, and numerous labor-savihg im- 
 plements. " Your civilization is degraded ; ours is elevated," cried this worthy 
 commander to the wondering Asiatics. " Behold the proof. Your plows and 
 carriages {^jin-Hkiaha ) are drawn by men ; ours by steam. Your messages are 
 carried by runners ; ours by lightning. You are the slaves of toil; we are the 
 masters." You are very anxious to sell these civilizing machines to the Japa- 
 nese, in order, as you said, to lift tbeiii up to your own proud level, and ypu 
 have never failed to similarly press them upon us. Was this because you were 
 mistaken with respect to the advantages of labor-saving machines, or because 
 you anticipated having no further use" for them at home ? 
 
 But enough. The times are hard ; there is much suffering among the poor 
 in every land, and coming, as I do, from a country where suffering has most 
 enthroned itself I am not disposed to push the argumnet beyond the pale of 
 self-defense. No one has a deeper stake in the welfare of yoiir working 
 classes than the Chinese ; for unless they manage to sustain themselves, what 
 must be the fate of our starving millions ? All I ask is that your workingmen 
 will cchse to look upon the Chinese as the source of their troubles. It is not 
 there, nor is it in the presence of any other labor-saving machines. Perhaps 
 they will find it in the world's dwindling stock of metallic money — and in this 
 respect one of the planks of their platform commends itself most heartily to my 
 mind. Perhaps they will find it inj governmental extravagance, in trade 
 monopolies, in the privileges accorded to corporations, in the exemption of 
 government bonds and other property from taxation — I know not where. 
 Your Congressional Committee, now in New York, is making the proper in- 
 quiries. It is not our business to discover the causes of your misfortunes. 
 It is enough if we show that they do not spring from our presence here, and 
 that, on the contrary, they would be infinitely aggravated were you unfortu- 
 nately to forget what is due to honor, to justice, and to your own interest, and 
 attempt to drive us away &om your shores. Kwanq Cuajno Lino. 
 
 eRUOE-S, SAO. BELOW MONTQOMEAY, S. P.