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There- can be no doubt, that the speediest, the most effective and cheapest 

 means to raise the mining industry to the height of modern times lies in 

 admission of foreigners to work the mines, and the question is only, how far 

 this means would be to the interest of the country. The objection, that the 

 foreigners in a comparatively short time would possess themselves of and export 

 the mineral treasures of the country, so that the pecuniary condition of the latter 

 although momentarily somewhat improved, would later, when the mines had 

 been exhausted, become very much deteriorated — is scarcely tenable. In the 

 first place, the existing deposits, which have hitherto only been worked in their 

 superior levels, run for many years to come no risk of being exhausted, even by 

 an energetic production ; in the second place, the mines, when worked by mo- 

 dern methods and under foreign management, will utilize ores, which are now 

 .entirely lost ; and finally a flourishing mining industry, although the outturn 

 were largely exported, would yield a considerable revenue for the finances 

 through their royalties to the treasury as well as by affording encouragement 

 to industry in general. But there is another reason, which may well have 

 •caused the government to shrink from giving the right of mining free, and this 

 lies in the circumstance, that when once the interior of the country has been . 

 opened, it becomes impossible to prevent it being swamped by a Chinese injmir 

 gration. 



When we consider, to what troubles even a country with such enormous 

 demand for labor as the United States^has been exposed through an unlimited, 

 pigtailed immigration ; when we farther remember the short distance between 

 Japan and China, the kindred manners, the similarity in culture and mode of 

 life in the two countries, then it is impossible to shirk the conviction, that 

 Japan, through an illimited Chinese immigration, would not only get into 

 temporary troubles, but would find its national existence seriously jeopardized, 

 and this the more, because a comparison between the Japanese and the Chinese 

 workman does scarcely result to the advantage of the former. The Japanese 

 workman is undoubtedly clever and skilful, but he is generally lighthearted and 

 open-handed, and if he receives high pay, this rather prevents him from than 

 stimulates him to continued working, while the Chinaman is industrious, frugal 

 and saviDg, and by high wages is animated to still greater industry, — all of 

 them qualities which cannot but recommend him to the employer of workmen. 

 The manager of every mine, or any other establishment, worked by a foreigner, 

 would therefore in all probability sooner or later surround himself with a staff of 

 Chinese workmen. Even if the amount of the average daily wages, especially 

 when compared with the same in the United States is not alluring, the money 

 to le made by task — work, would in itself be sufficient to encourage immigration. 

 If may now easily be conceived, in what condition the Japanese workman would 



