orne
by the Chinese population--contributed $1,779,600, or not very short of
one half of the whole, and they of course contribute in many other ways
as well. The frugal, patient, industrious, go-ahead, money-making
Chinaman is undoubtedly the colonist for the sparsely inhabited islands
of the Malay archipelago. Where, as in Java, there is a large native
population and the struggle for existence has compelled the natives to
adopt habits of industry, the presence of the Chinaman is not a
necessity, but in a country like Borneo, where the inhabitants, from
time immemorial, except during unusual periods of drought or epidemic
sickness, have never found the problem of existence bear hard upon them,
it is impossible to impress upon the natives that they ought to have
"wants," whether they feel them or not, and that the pursuit of the
dollar for the sake of mere possession is an ennobling object,
differentiating the simple savage from the complicated product of the
higher civilization. The Malay, in his ignorance, thinks that if he can
obtain clothing suitable to the climate, a hut which adequately protects
him from sun and rain, and a wife to be the mother of his children and
the cooker of his meals, he should therewith rest content; but, then, no
country made up of units possessed of this simple faith can ever come to
anything--can ever be civilized, and hence the necessity for the Chinese
immigrant in Eastern Colonies that want to shew an annual revenue
advancing by leaps and bounds. The Chinaman, too, in addition to his
valuable properties as a keen trader and a man of business, collecting
from the natives the products of the country, which he passes on to the
European merchant, from whom he obtains the European fabrics and
American "notions" to barter with the natives, is also a good
agriculturist, whether on a large or small scale; he is muscular and can
endure both heat and cold, and so is, at any rate in the tropics, far
and away a superior animal to the white labourer, whether for
agricultural or mining work, as an artizan, or as a hewer of wood and
drawer of water, as a cook, a housemaid or a washerwoman. He can learn
any trade that a white man can teach him, from ship-building to
watchmaking, and he does not drink and requires scarcely any holidays or
Sundays, occasionally only a day to worship his ancestors.

It will be said that if he does not drink he smokes opium. Yes! he does,
and this, as we have seen, is what