Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
PAPERS RELATING TO
Emigration.
16. There has been an increase of 51 per cent. in the emigration of Chinese from Hong Kong in 1875 over 1874. The discovery of gold in the north of Queensland has led to a large emigration of Chinese to Cooktown, 8,325 persons having gone to that newly established port.
17. There has also been an increase during the year of 5,535 Chinese to the Straits Settlements and of 3,180 Chinese to California.
18. Many of the Chinese who left for Cooktown have returned, some of them discontented with the hardships which usually accompany the gold digger; while others have come back having been successful, and, as the voyage is an easy and a quick one, they have come to spend their new year holiday in their native country.
19. It is impossible to say how much gold has been brought from Cooktown, as the Chinese keep the gold in their own possession rather than place it in the hands of the captain and pay a small freight for its security.
20. During a short visit that I paid to Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, during the last summer, I was greatly interested in ascertaining how much or how little Chinese had gained by emigrating. In Melbourne and Sydney, every one admitted the persevering industry and sobriety of the Chinese, and the general cry was for Chinese labour, but no one seemed disposed to import it. Trades unionism amongst the European artisans and servants tends in a great measure to keep Chinese labour out of the field.
21. I observed but few Chinese employed in conjunction with Europeans. Chinese were chiefly working on their own account, keeping shops, cultivating and selling vegetables; and in the towns they appeared to thrive and make money.
22. A visit to Ballarat, Creswick, Clunes, and their neighbouring gold fields, enabled me to see the patience of the Chinese to its fullest extent. I found these people working in gangs of four or five, digging, washing, all at hard solid labour, working while it was daylight and having nothing but the most miserable hut, neither wind nor water-tight, to retire to for the night. The earnings of these men averaged about £31 sterling a month each. The fields on which they are allowed to seek for gold have generally been worked over twice or three times and have ultimately been deserted by European diggers, and it is the latter's refuse that Chinese are content to take. Chinese would be much better paid, housed, and fed as farm labourers, but many of them seemed to prefer the chance of finding something good and becoming rich more quickly than a labourer's savings will permit.
23. In newly discovered gold fields, a greater amount of success attends the digger's labour, but even there the Chinaman is not allowed to come near when the European thinks he will