Black, White, or Yellow? |
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Author:
| Gluckstein, S. M. |
ISBN: | 978-0-217-18255-3 |
Publication Date: | Aug 2009 |
Publisher: | General Books LLC
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Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | USD $14.14 |
Book Description:
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PHASE I. THE CASE FOR CHINESE LABOUR, In a situation such as has been created by the shortage of aboriginal labour in South Africa, a practical solution of the problem should not be sacrificed to sentiment. If there are strong presumptive grounds for opposing the employment of Chinese in the Transvaal, or...
More DescriptionPurchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PHASE I. THE CASE FOR CHINESE LABOUR, In a situation such as has been created by the shortage of aboriginal labour in South Africa, a practical solution of the problem should not be sacrificed to sentiment. If there are strong presumptive grounds for opposing the employment of Chinese in the Transvaal, or elsewhere for that matter, there are even weightier grounds for supporting it. No greater mistake, could be made than to suppose that the Rand mining magnates are alone in their desire f0r yellow workmen. And the same remark applies to the inference that supporters of Chinese labour are supporters of these millionaires?gentlemen who by no means command wide sympathy. The essence of all good government is to afford the greatest benefit to the greatest number. It is not good government to paralyse the industrial vital1ty of alarge and rich country in order to defeat the aims of a few opulent, it may be also greedy, financiers. But that is the principle underlying the arguments of the anti-Asiatics. They would penalise everybody in the Transvaal for the purpose of striking at the rightly or wrongly abused Rand magnate. They vary this phase of the question by characterising the Imperial assent to Chinese labour as a reversion to slavery. What are the facts ? What are the economic conditions of the Transvaal ? Here then is a colony rich in mineral resources, but whose successful development is dependent upon an abundance of cheap unskilled workers. It abounds in large bodies of auriferous formation, the profitable treatment of which would be impossible in the majority of instances if the bulk of the labourers in the mines were paid on the basis of white men's wages in the Transvaal. It should not be difficult, of course, to secure the natives of South or Central Africa, of whom ...