Chinese Shearers
The Chinaman at home may be going to the wall, but the Chinaman abroad
is decidedly coming to the front witness the case of the Chinese shearers
at Moree reported in our issue of yesterday. These perfectly up to date
Celestials, on three Europeans being introduced among them, at once downed
tools, and declined to take them up again until the newcomers were discharged.
In the way of racial proscription, this is commending the poisoned chalice
to our own lips with a vengeance
Or perhaps on the other hand, it is simply a Chinese illustration of the
Napoleonic maxim of "The tools to those who can rise them." The Chinamen are
described as old hands at the business, which they wished to keep to themselves,
a piece of information which might possibly imply that the Europeans were novices.
Anyhow the strike in question is not the least curious of the signs of the times.
Notes
From the NSW Newspaper The Bathurst Post 15 Dec 1894 p. 2. Top