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AFRICA FOR THE CHINESE.I

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AFRICA FOR THE CHINESE. Captain Francis Galton, the well-known African traveller, writes 8S follows to The Times, suggesting a most novel method for the ultimate extinction of slavery and slave traffic In a few days Sir Bartle Frere will return to England, and public attention will be directed to the East Coast of Africa. I am desirous of availing myself of the op- portunity to ventilate some speculations of my own, which you may, perhaps, consider of sufficient interest to deserve publication in The Times. My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements at one or more suitable places on the East Coastof Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese im- migrants wouldnotonly maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negrt race. I should expect that a large part of the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages living under the nominal sovereignty of Zanzibar, or Portugal, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semi-detached dependency of Caina, or else in perfect freedom under their own laws. In the latter case their position would be similar to that of the inhabitants of Liberia, in West Africa, the terri- tory of which was purchased 50 years ago and set apart as an independent State for the reception of freed negroes from America. The opinion of the public upon the real worth of the Negro race has halted between the extreme views which have been long and loudly proclaimed. It re- fuses to follow those of the early abolitionists, that all the barbarities in Africa are to be traced to the effects of a foreign slave trade, because travellers con- tinually speak of similar barbarities existing in regions to which the trade has not penetrated. Captain Colomb has written a well-argued chapter on this matter, in his recent volume. On the other hand, the opinion of the present day repudiates the belief that the negro is an extremely inferior being, because there are not)rious instances of negroes possessing high intelligence and culture, some of whom acquire large fortunes in commerce, and others become considerable men in other walks of life. The truth appears to be that individuals of the mental. calibre I have just described are much more excep- tional in the negro than in the Anglo-Saxon race, and that average negroes possess too little intellect, self- reliance, and self-control to make it possible for them to sustain the burden of any respectable form of civi- lization without a large measure of external guidance and support. The Chinaman is a being of another kind, who is endowed with a remarkable aptitude for a high material civilization. He is seen to the least ad- vantage in his own country, where a temporary dark age still prevails, which has not sapped the genius of the race, though it has stunted the development of each member of it, by the rigid enforcement of an effete system of classical education, which treats originality as a social crime. All the bad parts of his character, as* his lying and servility, spring from timidity due to an education that has cowed him, and no treatment is< better calculated to remedy that evil than location in a free settlement. The natural capacity of the China- man shows itself by the success with which, notwith- standing his timidity, he competes with strangers, wherever he may reside. The Chinese emigrants possess an extraordinary instinct for political and social organization they contrive to establish for themselves a police and internal government, and they give no trouble to their rulers so long as they are left to manage those matters by themselves. They are good- tempered, frugal, industrious, saving, commercially nolined, and extraordinarily prolific. They thrive in all countries, the natives of the Southern provinces being perfectly able to labour and multiply in the hottest climates. Of all known varieties of mankind there is none so appropriate as the Chinaman to become the future occupant of the enormous regions which lie between the tropics, whose extent is far more vast than it appears, from the cramped manner in which those latitudes are pictnred7 in the ordinary maps of the world. But take a globe and examine it, and consider the huge but poorly- peopled bulk of Africa, by whose side the areas of China look insignificant, and think what a field lies. there for the development of a suitable race. The Hindoo cannot fulfil the required conditions nearly so well as the Chinaman, for he is inferiortohim in strength, industry, aptitude for saving, business habits, and prolific power. The Arab is little more than an eater up of other men's produce he is a destroyer rather than a creator, and he is unprolihc. The history of the world tells a tale of the continual displacement of populations, each by a worthier suc- cessor, and hunanity gains thereby. We ourselves are no descendants of the aborigines of Britain, and our colonists were invaders of the regions they now occupy as their lawful home. But the countries into which the Anglo-Saxon race can be transfused are restricted to those where the climate is temperate. The tropics are not for us, to inhabit permanently; the greater part of Africa is the heritage of people differently constituted to ourselves. Oa that. continent, as else- where, one population continually drives out another. Consider its history as it extends over successive cen- turies. We note how Arab, Tuarick, Fellatah, Negroes of uncounted varieties, Caffre and Hottentot surge and reel to and fro in the struggle for existence. It is into this free ftght among all present that I wish to see I a new competitor introduced -namely, the Chinaman. The gain would be immense to the whole civilized world if we were to out-breed and finally displace the I negro, as completely as the latter has displaced the aborigines of the West Indies. The magnitude of the gain may be partly estimated by making the converse supposition—namely, the loss that would ensue if China were somehow to be depopulated and restocked by negroes. The pressue of population in China is enormous, and its outflow is great and increasing. There is no lack of material for a suitable immigration into Africa. I do not say that it would be possible at any moment to persuade communities of men and women from Southern China to establish themselves in Africa but I am assured, by excellent authorities, that occasions of political disturbance frequently arise when it would be practicable to do so by the promise of a free, or nearly free, grant of land. The Chinese have a land hunger, as well as a love for petty traffic, and they would find a field in which to gratify both of these tastes on the East African Coast. There are many Chinese capitalists resi- dent in foreign parts who might speculate in such a system and warmly encourage it. If once successfully started, it ought to maintain itself. The colonists could not starve; and when they began to succeed they would send money home to their relatives to enable them to follow, just as they now do from the many other parts of the world where they are locate J. For these reasons it is probable that the streams of emigration from China have sufficient "head "to enable them to reach and overflow the coasts of Eastern Africa if they were watched and judiciously diverted in that direction. I have finally to speak of the political effort necessary to secure a free right of occupancy and of settlement at suitable points on the coast. No very serious obstacle seems to stand in the way; certainly none was met with when Liberia was founded. It is probable that as the success of such an enterprise would be of equally great value to all nations commercially interested in those parts, no national jealousy would be excited by its promotion, and the necessary territory could be ob- tained with little difficulty and at a small cost, to be advanced in the first instance as a charge on the land and hereafter to be redeemed.

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

- i PARLIAMENT.

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ACTION FOR DECLARATION OF…

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THE LATE EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

THIRTY-FOUR YEARS IN CHANCERY.

WOMEN'S PRIVILEGES AND DISABILITIES.

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----------WHAT CONSTITUTES…

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--|Hisce!Umx0WS Intelligence,

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