184 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bettered, the clangers that threaten from such inexhaustible sources 

 of human supply become easy of appreciation. 



It may well be inferred that a line of public policy on the part 

 of any other nation intended to shut out such a class of immi- 

 gration as this must be literally " iron-clad " in its construction, 

 and must involve measures of defense practically as stern, unre- 

 lenting, and costly in their character as are the measures of de- 

 fense against invasion commonly taken among nations at war 

 with each other. 



So far, Chinese immigration in other countries has been suffi- 

 ciently powerful to break down all the barriers that have been 

 reared against it. Wherever they have gained a foothold there 

 they have continued to go, there they have increased and multi- 

 plied. Wherever they have gone, in earlier or later times, pro- 

 longed contact with them and competition in the field of labor 

 have developed the same race antipathies that exist between the 

 American people on the Pacific coast and the Chinese to-day. 



Since 18G0 200,000 Chinese have landed in Chili and Peru. 

 Nearly 400,000 have found their way into the United States 

 through the port of San Francisco since the Chinese immigration 

 first began. The numbers that have migrated to Australia, the 

 Sandwich Islands, and other countries have been enormous. The 

 larger part of this emigration from China has occurred since the 

 walls of Chinese exclusiveness were battered down by English 

 and French cannon in 1858. It is clear that, while China was 

 then opened to the commerce and intercourse of the world, so the 

 world was likewise opened to the free flow of the yellow tide of 

 Chinese immigration, sweeping with constantly augmented and 

 resistless force in every direction. We have seen the incentive of 

 poverty and misery at home that underlies and induces Chinese 

 emigration. We have seen that with them it is either expatria- 

 tion or starvation. We have seen that massacre and cruelty can 

 not change their purpose or intimidate them, and we may well ask 

 ourselves the question whether the mild type of legislation em- 

 bodied in the " Scott Exclusion Act " can be more effective in this 

 direction. Assuming that it will be sustained by the Supreme 

 Court of the United States, assuming that it will effectually stop 

 the landing of Chinese in our ports, how far will it prove effective 

 in barring the entrance of Chinese along the thousands of miles 

 of frontier that intervene between British Columbia on the north 

 and Mexico on the south ? Is it to be presumed that Chinese cun- 

 ning and perseverance, inspired by their wretched condition at 

 home, and the incentive of good wages, constant employment, and 

 a more comfortable mode of life here, will not overcome all ob- 

 stacles that this hasty and crude kind of legislation has set up 

 against them ? Is it to be presumed that a law that imposes upon 



