TRANSLATION
OF A CHINESE CIRCULAR REPORTED TO HAVE BEEN WIDELY DISTRIBUTED IN CHINA.
[1913]
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Nelson
Chinatown. (1890's)
Image courtesy of BC Archives, Victoria, BC. E 09183
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A faithful description
of the hardships and sufferings of the Chinese people in Canada. Issued
by the Victoria Chinese Board of Trade and circulated for the information
of their fellow-countrymen in China.
Gentlemen,
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Chinese
labour on Baille-Grohman canal. (1887)
Image courtesy of Fort Steele Heritage Town FS 11.6
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Let us seriously
warn you not to think of coming to this place on any account or under
any consideration. The day when the foreign ports were made accessible
to Chinese, marked the deplorable epoch when the Chinese people began
to emigrate and shift about without a home. Since then they have travelled
abroad in peril of their lives to earn a living by the sweat of their
brow in foreign places. Though they have no useful knowledge and intelligence
to boast of, they are a race of people who have gained the confidence
of foreigners by their industry, perseverance, patience and frugal habits,
and this is why Europe, America, Australia, Africa and the straits Settlements,
etc., are in favour of importing Chinese labour whenever they open a new
colony, for working mines or any important industry, where roads require
to be made and general public works have to be carried out. When China
was under the tyrannical government of the Manchu autocrats, they were
grievously oppressed and compelled to suffer at the hands of these rulers;
so much so that it was difficult for the working classes to struggle for
even a mere existence in their own country. Consequently they were glad
to get out of their country to earn a livelihood abroad, in spite of the
fact that they had to travel to the distant places in great peril. Today
Chinese are to be found everywhere in the world. The new colonies have
now been properly developed and made suitable for international communication,
but the good services Chinese labour has rendered in these connections
are now entirely forgotten by the foreigners. Periodically the cry "Down
with the Chinese and the Asiatics" is raised everywhere. The complaint
against the Chinese is that they are as penetrating as quick-silver, and
crowd into every nook and corner wherever they go, so that their labour
is as cheap as dirt and consequently interfere with the individual existence
of the foreigner and his national welfare. The Foreign Governments make
laws to exclude Chinese labour from their countries and believing in the
high-handed policy of "might overcomes right"; they lend themselves readily
to the innumerable anti-Chinese movements conducted by their people with
a view to exterminating Chinese in their territories.
They are doing all
they possible can to shut their door on the Chinese. This is not only
done in one foreign country but in all places under the foreigner's rule.
There is practically not one inch of land abroad which a Chinaman can
with freedom stand on, and yet our people at home do not believe us when
we tell them about the great hardships we suffer. They listen to glowing
but incorrect accounts about things in foreign places, and when they hear
of a new foreign port or country which is prepared to admit Chinese labour,
they do not take the trouble to enquire whether the place is favourable
and friendly to them or not, and whether the Chinese labourer is welcome
there or otherwise. They recklessly jump at the idea and sell all they
possess at home, to pay for their passage there, so as to fulfil their
long established wish to try their fortune abroad. In doing so, they are
running the risk of falling into the clutches of rogues and swindlers
who may sell them as slaves. They may, after reaching the new country,
die of disease brought about by its unkindly climate. They may not find
work to support themselves and consequently die of cold and starvation.
The working people at home have been deluded into going abroad, and many
who went, did so at their own cost and even at the loss of their lives.
Is there a more lamentable state of things than this? But in spite of
all, Chinese keep coming over to Canada by thousands and there is every
likelihood that they will get starved and die homeless here. We who are
Chinese residents in Canada and have gone through the mill, know what
is and what is not good for a Chinese emigrant. We are eyewitnesses of
the miseries the Chinese are suffering here, and feel it our duty to give
our people a word of warning and our well meant advice.
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Chinese
cook on horseback, Lake O'hara, BC. (1905)
Image courtesy of Glenbow Archives, Victoria, BC.
NA-2622.50
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Canada is situated
in the North of North America and is entirely a possession of England.
It has an area of several scores of thousands of miles, and the country
is divided into 9 provinces or counties. It has plenty of wasteland and
a very scanty population of aborigines. The temperature is very low and
the soil is unsuitable for agriculture. The leading industry is coal mining.
The labouring classes of Chinese here are principally engaged in mining
coal, in laundry work and cooking and in doing work at the timber yards.
The first batch of Chinese came to Canada the first year of the Reign
of Emperor Tung Chi (1862). They were invited by the English Government
to go there to lay out the country and make roads and open up what land
they could find suitable for cultivation. The Chinese went there and brought
a good deal of the land under cultivation. The number of Chinese who went
there in the early part of that Emperor's reign was somewhere about 15
thousand, many of whom have fallen sick and succumbed either to the severe
cold, or to the climatic diseases. This gives you an idea of the miserable
state and sterility of this country in days gone by. Now with its growing
prosperity and the great improvements that have been made, the country
is quite different from what it was. Is not this change for the better
owing, in even a very small measure, to the labour of the Chinese who
had gone before us? We should say it is, but notwithstanding this, the
Government here ungraciously ignores the Chinese people and subjects them
to all sorts of ill treatment and drastic laws. In order to reduce the
number of Chinese in the country, the Government at first started to levy
a Poll Tax on the Chinese emigrants as the rate of $50 per head. Later
they raised it from $50 to $100 and then to $500 and so on. This is a
slow process of starving us out, starting with the taking away of all
we have, before they allow us to enter the country. The next thing they
will do will be to fleece us to the bones, until there is not a sound
spot on our body. If a Chinaman is coming here to work as a labourer or
a domestic servant, they do all they can to find out all about him and
his antecedents, and then place him under close watch and most rigid restrictions
so that all the Chinese in Canada will in time to come, entirely lose
their liberty and freedom, and then there will be nothing for it but for
each and every one of us to fold our arms and await death.
Why should you,
brothers, leave your parents and your wives and children to come over
here? Don't you know that our lot in life here is very much harder than
it is in China? There are now about 20 thousand Chinese in Canada, who
are unemployed and without a permanent home. They can get no work to support
themselves. They go about begging old clothes and bread to save themselves
from cold and starvation. They have nothing to depend on for their subsistence.
They have practically turned tramps. Those who are sick are seen panting
with pain and agony in the streets, unrelieved and uncared for. The site
is most pathetic and heart-rending. Is there any thing on earth more painful
to witness than this? So much for the condition of our people here. We
will now tell you about the more drastic laws the Government had recently
made against us, and we hope that you will believe us and be guided by
the good council we are offering you.
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Rhoda
Chow - Head Tax Certificate, 1913
Image courtesy of Trail City Archives, Trail, BC,
1253.
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The Chinese poll
tax system was inaugurated in 1887. When a Chinaman enters the country,
a receipt is issued for the Poll Tax he has paid to the Government. In
former years no investigation was held with regard to these receipts,
and so we treated them as mere useless papers. Many holders of such receipts
have in consequence either lost them through carelessness, or had them
destroyed in fires, etc. The Government has now enacted a law requiring
all Chinese who come to Canada before the 1st June, 1912, to renew such
receipts which must be officially scrutinised, before the holder of same
who intends returning to China, is allowed to land again when he comes
back to Canada. Any Chinese who arrived before the Poll Tax Bill was enforced,
or who may have lost the receipts issued to them for this tax, are required
to go to an official agent to state as far as their memories will carry
them, the date at which they arrived in Canada and the name of the steamer
by which they came. A fee of $25.00 had also to be paid to the official
agent who forwards the statement and the money to the Government together
with an application for a duplicate of the lost receipt. If the statement
is unsatisfactory or even if slight discrepancies in facts are found in
it, the application is at once refused. How unreasonable is this procedure?
Let us ask you how many persons in a hundred are able to state such things
of the past with accuracy from sheer memory? You may well take it for
granted that the measure pursued by the Government in this matter is a
piece of artifice or trick, by which they mean to gradually drive out
all the Chinese from the country.
The total amount
of Poll Tax received up to date from Chinese emigrants as shown in the
following figures is enormous: - From September 1885 to 30th December
1900, the number of Chinese admitted into Canada was 16,070. The Poll
tax collected during that period amounted to 803, 500 gold dollars at
the rate of G. $50 per head. From 1st January 1902 to 31st December 1903,
the Poll Tax was raised to G. $100 per head. In these 2 years, 9,148 Chinese
entered the country and the total amounts of Poll tax collected was G.
$914,800. From 1st January 1904 to December 31st 1912, this tax went up
to G. $500 per head. During these (9) years the number of Chinese admitted
to Canada was 14, 207 and the total of Poll tax collected from then amounted
to $7,103,500. From the first January to 30th April this year (1913),
the number of admissions was 1,350 and the total of Poll Tax collected
was G. $675,000. The grand total of admissions into Canada up to date
is 40,755 and the grand total of Poll tax collected G. $9,495,800, equal
to about $19,593,600 Chinese currency.
These are appalling
figures both in the number of persons admitted and in Poll Tax collected
and one cannot of coming over to us, after having gone over these figures
and heard our account of the miseries of our people, who are already in
this country.
DEPOSIT MONEY PAYABLE BY
CHINESE SERVANTS.
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Chinese,
BC. (1885)
Image courtesy of National Archives of Canada, Ottawa,
Ontario. C-64764
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Chinese students
who come to Canada are required to pay deposit of $500.00 to the Government
as evidence of good faith, before they are allowed to land. In former
years this money was refunded to the student after he had studied for
2 years in Canada and the repayment of this money was made on application
to the Government through a solicitor on his behalf. During the past several
years, the deposits paid by Chinese students have amounted to about D.
$300,000. The Government has now appropriated all this money, giving as
their excuse, that the ordinance re: the Chinese student deposit is defective,
as it gives the ordinary Chinese a loop-hole by which they may evade the
Poll tax, and therefore does not stand good. It is heartless for them
to maintain such an unjust attitude towards the students. If the ordinance
is faulty, why did they pass it as law, when it was brought up and before
the deposits were ever collected. The Government has now appropriated
all these deposits in defiance of the law and without giving the Chinese
due notice. This action is most iniquitous, and no man on earth unless
he has the heart of a beast, would think of doing such a wicked thing!
Is not this the cruel conduct of a tyrant? It is scarcely necessary for
us to point out that the underlying design of the Government in relieving
the students of the deposit money, is to prevent the yellow people associating
themselves with white man.
RESTRICTIONS ON CHINESE
LAUNDRIES.
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Sam
Tui's laundry, Golden, BC. (1910)
Image courtesy of Fort Steele Heritage Town
FS 331.1
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Every Chinese emigrant
has to pay $500 Poll Tax before he is allowed to land in Canada. As every
body knows, it is utterly hopeless for a Chinaman to make anything approaching
a fortune in Canada in these hard times. In the laundries the Chinese
earn their living by hard honest labour, and yet the white people grudge
them this their humble occupation. They have recently made a law prohibiting
Chinese from calling at the houses of Europeans for washing, and the girls
of Europeans from taking washing to the Chinese laundries. This law is
now being enforced in several counties such as "Shu Shi", "Kai Chuan",
etc. It is wicked in the extreme and is unthinkable even in a savage country.
Are you, brothers, still anxious to come over here, after you have been
told this?
CHINESE COOKS.
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Chinese
cook and two boys in BC.
Image courtesy of Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver,
BC
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An agitation is now
raised on all sides against the employment of Chinese in foreign hotels
and restaurants. The Unionists are compelling the keepers of hotels and
restaurants to discharge all their Chinese cooks and replace them by Euroeans.
They have already succeeded in doing this in the "Pi Si" counties. How
are those cooks who are being thrown out of employment, to reimburse themselves
for the $500 Poll Tax they have paid to the Government, and how will the
new comers be able to support themselves by work, when such a merciless
wholesale campaign is directed against the Chinese labourers. Alas! The
Chinese in Canada are now utterly undone: they are crushed by a tyrannical
Government and detested by its Unionist party. Before they get any benefit
they receive harm, and woe to the Chinaman who once sets foot on the soil
of this country.
THE EFFECT OF THE REPEATED
STRIKES OF EUROPEAN LABOURERS ON THE CHINESE.
The Chinese who work
in the coalmines and timber mills count by several thousands. Of recent
years, the foreign labourers have repeatedly got up strikes for an increase
in wages. The employers have refused them a rise as often as the demand
has been made, and in consequence, the employers and the employed are
constantly at loggerheads, so the matter has been prolonged and the difference
between them has remained unsettled for years. Although the Chinese labourers
have taken no part in this agitation, they have been dragged into the
matter by their European workers against their will. The strikes have
led to the discharge of European as well as Chinese labourers on a very
large scale.
In view of this unlucky
incident, which has crested ill feeling between the employers and the
employed, is it such an easy matter for a Chinese newcomer to get employment
in this country? The above is only an outline of the distressed circumstances
the Chinese are in, in this country. The details are too numerous and
too painful for the pen to describe. Things during the last 10 months
up to the 31st of May last year, have been painful enough for the Chinese
here, and how much more unbearable they will be after the 1st of June
this year.
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Chinese
cabins, Wild Horse Creek.
Image courtesy of Fort Steele Heritage Town FS 5.444
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In a word, the Chinese
here are like meat on a chop-block which is at the mercy of the chopper.
This is the inevitable fate of us Chinese who are already here, but we
hope it is not too late yet to warn those of our people who are thinking
of coming to Canada. If they come over, they are bound to suffer with
us and let us warn them that our suffering is very great and they must
be prepared for it, if they come in spite of our faithful advice. We hope
all our people in China are sensible enough to understand what distresses
we are in, on reading this circular, and give up the idea of coming to
this country.
By laying this circular
before our people, we mean to put them on their guard against the avarice
and mercenary motives of heartless passage brokers, and we most sincerely
hope that they will not doubt our statement, which we assure them is absolutely
true, so that our warning may not be given in vain.
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Hydraulic
mining on Wild Horse. (1925) Pete Lum working nozzle with Chance
Howard in foreground.
image courtesy of Fort Steele Heritage Town FS 5.443
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Issued and chopped by the
Chinese Board of Trade Guild in Victoria, Canada.
From:
National Archives of Canada
RG 76: Immigration Branch
Volume 121, File 23635, part 3
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