D.—3

2

early period of their history would mar and render impossible the bright future which lies before those colonies and this portion of the world. If we turn to New Zealand we shall find that the same line of reasoniug holds good. The welfare of the Pacific and the adjacent countries depends still more upon New Zealand than upon Australia. New Zealand is in an isolated position in the Pacific Ocean. It has not near it vast masses of uncivilized people. Every portion of it can be inhabited and cultivated by Anglo-Saxons. Small farmers and their families may thrive in every part of it. And it can, by reason of its climate and fertility, carry a very numerous population in a highly civilized condition. The first immigrants to New Zealand were Relected with extraordinary care. Thus the foundations for the future nation were here most wisely laid. With a soil generally fertile, New Zealand abounds in coal, minerals, forests, and excellent harbours. Its climate is one of the finest in the world. These advantages will enable it to support a numerous people. Its children, brought up in a temperate climate, amidst mountains and forests, or accustomed from youth to the sea, must form an athletic and healthy race. Trained also under free institutions, and accustomed to obey the dictates of Christianity, they will be capable worthily to govern and direct the commerce and civilization of the numerous islands which lie to the east and north of their country. It would, therefore, hardly be an exaggeration to say that the future of the islands of the Pacific Ocean depends upon the inhabitants of New Zealand being true to themselves, and preserving uninjured and unmixed that Anglo-Saxon population which now inhabits it, and the pure-bred descendants of which ought to inhabit these islands for all time. It is necessary to remember that the greater number of the islands in the Pacific Ocean cannot be inhabited permanently by a European race. Thev must be inhabited and cultivated by people who, in the first instance, will be either barbarous or of an inferior order of civilization, and unaccustomed to the Christian faith. The future welfare and progress of those islands, therefore, depends upon their being in the vicinity of a Christian and civilized race, to whom they can look up for example and guidance, by whom they can be governed, whose language they should be encouraged to adopt, whose laws should command their reverence, and who should be felt to be at once their superiors, their friends, and a people worthy of their imitation. Now, this can only be accomplished by New Zealand possessing a population of a superior character, whose good qualities have been developed by their religion, their laws, their literature, the freedom of their institutions, their commerce, their general prosperity, their happiness and contentment, their attachment to the institutions under which they have grown into a people, aud a knowledge of their own worth, and of their capacity for fulfilling the great duty to which thev are called. They should, in short, be a people manifestly capable of exercising that vast influence in this portion of the world which appears to be the inheritance appointed for them by Providence. If this is the case, it is thus clearly their duty to themselves, no less than to their neighbours, to take care that they shall always continue fit to work out so great a future. All their institutions are being based upon the supposition that a great destiny lies before them. If they allow themselves to bo in any degree embarrassed by foreign races, or if a mixed breed of an inferior degree of civilization is allowed to spring up here, not only the welfare of the other races who surround them will be imperilled, but their own future will be greatly endangered. Holding these points in view, let us proceed to some further considerations. The presence in this country of a large population of Chinese, or of any cognate race, would exercise a deteriorating effect upon its civilization. There can be little doubt that they would largely influence the labour-market. From their habits and mode of life they could subsist upon a much smaller sum than is necessary for the support of a European household in decency and comfort. They could, therefore, work for loss wages, and those European artificers or labourers who were thus driven into competition with strangers, and were forced to accept a rate of wages below what the necessities of themselves and their families required, would have to make great sacrifices of their independence and welfare. They would indeed have to descend to the scale of civilization which their competitors from habit would occupy with satisfaction; whilst to the European, this change in his habits, in his diet, clothing, and dwelling, would involve an entire abnegation of his self-respect and independence. After a few years of suffering, the habits and civilization of himself and his family would be entirely altered. The Chinese coming here unaccompanied by females (who are prohibited by the laws of the country from leaving China) would, again, in many respects, exercise a very deteriorating effect upon the Europeans in this country. This is a subject which need not be alluded to at length. Those who choose to think it out, and to follow it into its various ramifications, will find it pregnant with interest, and will, I think, be forced to admit that it must prove prolific in disasters to New Zealand. There is another circumstance which should be thought of. In all the islands of the Pacific the terrible disease of leprosy exhibits itself from time to time. It has always existed in sorno degree in the New Zealand Islands, but the Natives formerly kept it almost entirely stamped out by isolating their lepers. Leprosy prevails in China; and wherever the Chinese go in numbers they carry that disease with them. It is stated that their advent into the Sandwich Islands was marked with the great spread of that disease throughout the aboriginal population. It must be borne in mind that, if a large population in a peculiar degree of civilization is introduced into any country, all the diseases inherent in that population are at the same time introduced with them. The influx of vast masses of coolies into Mauritius introduced many new diseases into that colony. Therefore, not only leprosy but other diseases must be expected to be coincident with the introduction of any large number of Chinese into New Zealand. The consideration of the arguments used in this paper will show that it is necessary some regulations should be laid down regarding the future immigration of Chinese into this country. Up to the present time about five thousand Chinese have arrived here. Nine females have also been returned as being inhabitants of New Zealand, but they are stated to be not of purely Chinese origin.