SHALL WE BE RUINED BY CHINESE CHEAP LABOUR?
“WHAT is all this talk I ’ear about the Chinese?” said Mrs. Wilkins to methe other morning. We generally indulge in a little chat while Mrs.Wilkins is laying the breakfast-table. Letters and newspapers do notarrive in my part of the Temple much before nine. From half-past eightto nine I am rather glad of Mrs. Wilkins. “They ’ave been up to some oftheir tricks again, ’aven’t they?”
“The foreigner, Mrs. Wilkins,” I replied, “whether he be Chinee or anyother he, is always up to tricks. Was not England specially prepared byan all-wise Providence to frustrate these knavish tricks? Which of suchparticular tricks may you be referring to at the moment, Mrs. Wilkins?”
“Well, ’e’s comin’ over ’ere—isn’t he, sir? to take the work out of ourmouths, as it were.”
“Well, not exactly over here, to England, Mrs. Wilkins,” I explained.“He has been introduced into Africa to work in the mines there.”
“It’s a funny thing,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “but to ’ear the way some ofthem talk in our block, you might run away with the notion—that is, ifyou didn’t know ’em—that work was their only joy. I said to one of ’em,the other evening—a man as calls ’isself a brass finisher, though, Lordknows, the only brass ’e ever finishes is what ’is poor wife earns andisn’t quick enough to ’ide away from ’im—well, whatever ’appens, I says,it will be clever of ’em if they take away much work from you. It madethem all laugh, that did,” added Mrs. Wilkins, with a touch of pardonablepride.
“Ah,” continued the good lady, “it’s surprising ’ow contented they can bewith a little, some of ’em. Give ’em a ’ard-working woman to look afterthem, and a day out once a week with a procession of the unemployed, theydon’t ask for nothing more. There’s that beauty my poor sister Jane wasfool enough to marry. Serves ’er right, as I used to tell ’er at first,till there didn’t seem any more need to rub it into ’er. She’d ’ad onegood ’usband. It wouldn’t ’ave been fair for ’er to ’ave ’ad another,even if there’d been a chance of it, seeing the few of ’em there is to goround among so many. But it’s always the same with us widows: if we’appen to ’ave been lucky the first time, we put it down to our ownjudgment—think we can’t ever make a mistake; and if we draw a wrong ’un,as the saying is, we argue as if it was the duty of Providence to make itup to us the second time. Why, I’d a been making a fool of myself threeyears ago if ’e ’adn’t been good-natured enough to call one afternoonwhen I was out, and ’ook it off with two pounds eight in the best teapotthat I ’ad been soft enough to talk to ’im about: and never let me seteyes on ’im again. God bless ’im! ’E’s one of the born-tireds, ’e is,as poor Jane might ’ave seen for ’erself, if she ’ad only looked at ’im,instead of listening to ’im.
“But that’s courtship all the world over—old and young alike, so far asI’ve been able to see it,” was the opinion of Mrs. Wilkins. “The man’sall eyes and the woman all ears. They don’t seem to ’ave any othersenses left ’em. I ran against ’im the other night, on my way ’ome, atthe corner of Gray’s Inn Road. There was the usual crowd watching a packof them Italians laying down the asphalt in ’Olborn, and ’e was among’em. ’E ’ad secured the only lamp-post, and was leaning agen it.
“’Ullo,’ I says, ‘glad to see you ’aven’t lost your job. Nothin’ likestickin’ to it, when you’ve dropped into somethin’ that really suitsyou.’
“‘What do you mean, Martha?’ ’e says. ’E’s not one of what I call yoursmart sort. It takes a bit of sarcasm to get through ’is ’ead.
“‘Well,’ I says, ‘you’re still on the old track, I see, looking for work.Take care you don’t ’ave an accident one of these days and run up agen itbefore you’ve got time to get out of its way.’
“‘It’s these miserable foreigners,’ ’e says. ‘Look at ’em,’ ’e says.
“‘There’s enough of you doing that,’ I says. ‘I’ve got my room to putstraight and three hours needlework to do before I can get to bed. Butdon’t let me ’inder you. You might forget what work was like, if youdidn’t take an opportunity of watching it now and then.’
“‘They come over ’ere,’ ’e says, ‘and take the work away from us chaps.’
“‘Ah,’ I says, ‘poor things, perhaps they ain’t married.’
“‘Lazy devils! ’e says. ‘Look at ’em, smoking cigarettes. I could dothat sort of work. There’s nothing in it. It don’t take ’eathenforeigners to dab a bit of tar about a road.’
“‘Yes,’ I says, ‘you always could do anybody else’s work but your own.’
“‘I can’t find it, Martha,’ ’e says.
“‘No,’ I says, ‘and you never will in the sort of places you go lookingfor it. They don’t ’ang it out on lamp-posts, and they don’t leave itabout at the street corners. Go ’ome,’ I says, ‘and turn the mangle foryour poor wife. That’s big enough for you to find, even in the dark.’
“Looking for work!” snorted Mrs. Wilkins with contempt; “we women never’ave much difficulty in finding it, I’ve noticed. There are times when Ifeel I could do with losing it for a day.”
“But what did he reply, Mrs. Wilkins,” I asked; “your brass-finishingfriend, who was holding forth on the subject of Chinese cheap labour.”Mrs. Wilkins as a conversationalist is not easily kept to the point. Iwas curious to know what the working classes were thinking on thesubject.
“Oh, that,” replied Mrs. Wilkins, “’e did not say nothing. ’E ain’t thesort that’s got much to say in an argument. ’E belongs to the crowd that’angs about at the back, and does the shouting. But there was another of’em, a young fellow as I feels sorry for, with a wife and three smallchildren, who ’asn’t ’ad much luck for the last six months; and thatthrough no fault of ’is own, I should say, from the look of ’im. ‘I wasa fool,’ says ’e, ‘when I chucked a good situation and went out to thewar. They told me I was going to fight for equal rights for all whitemen. I thought they meant that all of us were going to ’ave a betterchance, and it seemed worth making a bit of sacrifice for, that did. Ishould be glad if they would give me a job in their mines that wouldenable me to feed my wife and children. That’s all I ask them for!’”
“It is a difficult problem, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said. “According to themine owners—”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Wilkins. “They don’t seem to be exactly what you’d callpopular, them mine owners, do they? Daresay they’re not as bad asthey’re painted.”
“Some people, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “paint them very black. There arethose who hold that the South African mine-owner is not a man at all, buta kind of pantomime demon. You take Goliath, the whale that swallowedJonah, a selection from the least respectable citizens of Sodom andGomorrah at their worst, Bluebeard, Bloody Queen Mary, Guy Fawkes, andthe sea-serpent—or, rather, you take the most objectionable attributes ofall these various personages, and mix them up together. The result isthe South African mine-owner, a monster who would willingly promote acompany for the putting on the market of a new meat extract, preparedexclusively from new-born infants, provided the scheme promised a fairand reasonable opportunity of fleecing the widow and orphan.”
“I’ve ’eard they’re a bad lot,” said Mrs. Wilkins. “But we’re most of usthat, if we listen to what other people say about us.”
“Quite so, Mrs. Wilkins,” I agreed. “One never arrives at the truth bylistening to one side only. On the other hand, for example, there arethose who stoutly maintain that the South African mine-owner is a kind ofspiritual creature, all heart and sentiment, who, against his own will,has been, so to speak, dumped down upon this earth as the result ofover-production up above of the higher class of archangel. The stock ofarchangels of superior finish exceeds the heavenly demand; the surplushas been dropped down into South Africa and has taken to mine owning. Itis not that these celestial visitors of German sounding nomenclature carethemselves about the gold. Their only
desire is, during this earthlypilgrimage of theirs, to benefit the human race. Nothing can be obtainedin this world without money—”
“That’s true,” said Mrs. Wilkins, with a sigh.
“For gold, everything can be obtained. The aim of the mine-owningarchangel is to provide the world with gold. Why should the worldtrouble to grow things and make things? ‘Let us,’ say these archangels,temporarily dwelling in South Africa, ‘dig up and distribute to the worldplenty of gold, then the world can buy whatever it wants, and be happy.’
“There may be a flaw in the argument, Mrs. Wilkins,” I allowed. “I amnot presenting it to you as the last word upon the subject. I am merelyquoting the view of the South African mine-owner, feeling himself a muchmisunderstood benefactor of mankind.”
“I expect,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “they are just the ordinary sort ofChristian, like the rest of us, anxious to do the best they can forthemselves, and not too particular as to doing other people in theprocess.”
“I am inclined to think, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “that you are not veryfar from the truth. A friend of mine, a year ago, was very bitter onthis subject of Chinese cheap labour. A little later there died adistant relative of his who left him twenty thousand South African miningshares. He thinks now that to object to the Chinese is narrow-minded,illiberal, and against all religious teaching. He has bought an abridgededition of Confucius, and tells me that there is much that is ennoblingin Chinese morality. Indeed, I gather from him that the introduction ofthe Chinese into South Africa will be the saving of that country. Thenoble Chinese will afford an object lesson to the poor white man,displaying to him the virtues of sobriety, thrift, and humility. I alsogather that it will be of inestimable benefit to the noble Chineehimself. The Christian missionary will get hold of him in bulk, so tospeak, and imbue him with the higher theology. It appears to be one ofthose rare cases where everybody is benefited at the expense of nobody.It is always a pity to let these rare opportunities slip by.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “I’ve nothin’ to say agen the Chinaman, as aChinaman. As to ’is being a ’eathen, well, throwin’ stones at a church,as the sayin’ is, don’t make a Christian of you. There’s Christians I’vemet as couldn’t do themselves much ’arm by changing their religion; andas to cleanliness, well, I’ve never met but one, and ’e was awasherwoman, and I’d rather ’ave sat next to ’im in a third-classcarriage on a Bank ’Oliday than next to some of ’em.
“Seems to me,” continued Mrs. Wilkins, “we’ve got into the ’abit oftalkin’ a bit too much about other people’s dirt. The London atmosphereain’t nat’rally a dry-cleanin’ process in itself, but there’s a goodishfew as seem to think it is. One comes across Freeborn Britons ’ere andthere as I’d be sorry to scrub clean for a shillin’ and find my ownsoap.”
“It is a universal failing, Mrs. Wilkins,” I explained. “If you talk toa travelled Frenchman, he contrasts to his own satisfaction the Paris_ouvrier_ in his blue blouse with the appearance of the London labourer.”
“I daresay they’re all right according to their lights,” said Mrs.Wilkins, “but it does seem a bit wrong that if our own chaps are willin’and anxious to work, after all they’ve done, too, in the way of gettingthe mines for us, they shouldn’t be allowed the job.”
“Again, Mrs. Wilkins, it is difficult to arrive at a just conclusion,” Isaid. “The mine-owner, according to his enemies, hates the Britishworkman with the natural instinct that evil creatures feel towards thenoble and virtuous. He will go to trouble and expense merely to spitethe British workman, to keep him out of South Africa. According to hisfriends, the mine-owner sets his face against the idea of white labourfor two reasons. First and foremost, it is not nice work; the mine-ownerhates the thought of his beloved white brother toiling in the mines. Itis not right that the noble white man should demean himself by such work.Secondly, white labour is too expensive. If for digging gold men had tobe paid anything like the same prices they are paid for digging coal, themines could not be worked. The world would lose the gold that themine-owner is anxious to bestow upon it.
“The mine-owner, following his own inclinations, would take a littlefarm, grow potatoes, and live a beautiful life—perhaps write a littlepoetry. A slave to sense of duty, he is chained to the philanthropicwork of gold-mining. If we hamper him and worry him the danger is thathe will get angry with us—possibly he will order his fiery chariot andreturn to where he came from.”
“Well, ’e can’t take the gold with him, wherever ’e goes to?” argued Mrs.Wilkins.
“You talk, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “as if the gold were of more value tothe world than is the mine-owner.”
“Well, isn’t it?” demanded Mrs. Wilkins.
“It’s a new idea, Mrs. Wilkins,” I answered; “it wants thinking out.”
Idle Ideas in 1905 Page 19
