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Shall We Be Ruined By Chinese Cheap Labour?
by
“It is a universal failing, Mrs. Wilkins,” I explained. “If you talk to a 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 getting the mines for us, they shouldn’t be allowed the job.”
“Again, Mrs. Wilkins, it is difficult to arrive at a just conclusion,” I said. “The mine-owner, according to his enemies, hates the British workman with the natural instinct that evil creatures feel towards the noble and virtuous. He will go to trouble and expense merely to spite the British workman, to keep him out of South Africa. According to his friends, the mine-owner sets his face against the idea of white labour for two reasons. First and foremost, it is not nice work; the mine-owner hates the thought of his beloved white brother toiling in the mines. It is 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 to be paid anything like the same prices they are paid for digging coal, the mines could not be worked. The world would lose the gold that the mine-owner is anxious to bestow upon it.
“The mine-owner, following his own inclinations, would take a little farm, grow potatoes, and live a beautiful life–perhaps write a little poetry. A slave to sense of duty, he is chained to the philanthropic work of gold-mining. If we hamper him and worry him the danger is that he will get angry with us–possibly he will order his fiery chariot and return 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 to the 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.”