Famine in China and the Prospect of Chinese Immigration
It is not impossible that the famine in China may produce a profound effect upon the destinies of America. It is reported, upon apparently unquestionable authority, that 70,000,000 of human beings are now on the verge of starvation in the famine-stricken provinces of North China. And there is some reason to believe that the Chinamen, fleeing from this terrible scourge along the pathway which a few emigrants have opened, will come, in numbers immensely greater than any we have yet dreamed of, to our shores. No legislation could possibly check or divert such a stream if once its flow were to begin. It would be easier to dam the waters of the Mississippi with an Act of Congress. “The Chinese difficulty,” says the London Times, commenting on this possibility, “may fairly become a greater menace to the future of the United States than the negro difficulty was at its worst; for the negro emigration was never voluntary, and closed with the abolition of the slave-trade, while if the Chinese tide once begins to flow in force it is difficult to see where and when it will stop.”—Christian Union.