‘Then why keep the Chinese?’

’We can get on with the Chinese.  We can’t get on without the Chinese.  But we must have Emigration of a Type that will assimilate with Our People.  I hope I have made myself clear?’

I hoped that he had, too.

Now hear a wife, a mother, and a housekeeper.

’We have to pay for this precious state of things with our health and our children’s.  Do you know the saying that the Frontier is hard on women and cattle?  This isn’t the frontier, but in some respects it’s worse, because we have all the luxuries and appearances—­the pretty glass and silver to put on the table.  We have to dust, polish, and arrange ’em after we’ve done our housework.  I don’t suppose that means anything to you, but—­try it for a month!  We have no help.  A Chinaman costs fifty or sixty dollars a month now.  Our husbands can’t always afford that.  How old would you take me for?  I’m not thirty.  Well thank God, I stopped my sister coming out West.  Oh yes, it’s a fine country—­for men.’

‘Can’t you import servants from England?’

’I can’t pay a girl’s passage in order to have her married in three months.  Besides, she wouldn’t work.  They won’t when they see Chinamen working.’

‘Do you object to the Japanese, too?’

’Of course not.  No one does.  It’s only politics.  The wives of the men who earn six and seven dollars a day—­skilled labour they call it—­have Chinese and Jap servants. We can’t afford it. We have to think of saving for the future, but those other people live up to every cent they earn.  They know they’re all right.  They’re Labour.  They’ll be looked after, whatever happens.  You can see how the State looks after me.’

A little later I had occasion to go through a great and beautiful city between six and seven of a crisp morning.  Milk and fish, vegetables, etc., were being delivered to the silent houses by Chinese and Japanese.  Not a single white man was visible on that chilly job.

Later still a man came to see me, without too publicly giving his name.  He was in a small way of business, and told me (others had said much the same thing) that if I gave him away his business would suffer.  He talked for half an hour on end.

‘Am I to understand, then,’ I said, ’that what you call Labour absolutely dominates this part of the world?’

He nodded.

‘That it is difficult to get skilled labour into here?’

’Difficult?  My God, if I want to get an extra hand for my business—­I pay Union wages, of course—­I have to arrange to get him here secretly.  I have to go out and meet him, accidental-like, down the line, and if the Unions find out that he is coming, they, like as not, order him back East, or turn him down across the Border.’

‘Even if he has his Union ticket?  Why?’

’They’ll tell him that labour conditions are not good here.  He knows what that means.  He’ll turn back quick enough.  I’m in a small way of business, and I can’t afford to take any chances fighting the Unions.’