Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[713] arts and commerce. The Chinaman is born to industry, as naturally as the negro is to sloth. He is the cheapest producer on the face of the earth, because his habits are simple and frugal. The proof of this is, that no western nation can sell its goods in the Chinese market. We are all compelled to purchase whatever we want from them, for cash. When we can work cheaper than the Chinese, we may hope to exchange our manufactured goods with them, but not until then.

Singapore is a miniature Canton, and the visitor, as he passes through its streets, has an excellent opportunity of comparing the industry of the Chinese with that of other nations. As a free port, Singapore is open to immigration from all parts of the earth, on equal terms. There are no jealous laws, guilds, or monopolies, to shackle the limbs, or dampen the energy or enterprise of any one. Free competition is the presiding genius of the place. The climate is healthy—the English call it the Madeira of the East—and the European artisan can labor in it as well as the East Indian or the Chinese. All nations flock hither to trade, as has already been remarked. Now what is the result? Almost all the business of every description is in the hands of the Chinese. Large Chinese houses monopolize the trade, and the Chinese artisan and day-laborer have driven out all others. Ninety thousand of the one hundred thousand of the population are Chinese.

Now that the exclusiveness of China has been broken in upon, and emigration permitted, what a destiny awaits such a people in the workshops and fields of the western world Already they are filling up the States on the Pacific coast, and silently, but surely, possessing themselves of all the avenues of industry in those States, thrusting aside the more expensive European and American laborers. They will cross the Rocky Mountains, and effect, in course of time, a similar revolution in the Western and Southern States. In the latter States their success will be most triumphant; for in these States, where the negro is the chief laborer, the competition will be between frugality, forecast, and industry on the one hand, and wastefulness, indifference to the future, and laziness on the other. The negro must, of necessity, disappear in such a conflict. Cheap labor must and will drive out dear labor. This law is as inexorable