Daily Honolulu Press

ONE OF THE TENDENCIES.
The question of the practical results of Chinese immigration is at last staring us in the face. Gild the matter over as we may, and hide the truth by the advancement of untried political theories and sentimental humanizing schemes, as many of us have done, still the practical results of this false system of population are forcing us to admit that Chinese frugality is constantly pushing the white man's thrift to the wall. It is the old lesson which we ought to have learned from the experience of California. Here, as there, it is becoming a difference between classes of people, where the complaint of the individual is becoming the cause of the community. Our merchants are already complaining, for they feel that the demands of this Asiatic competition are surely undermining the white man's commercial basis. The small retail buyer may be benefited for a time, but in the end he will work for very low wages to compete with the Chinese artisan—or he will starve. It is the old California story about, to be repeated in Hawaii.
One of the tendencies of Chinese competition may be seen, in all of its practical workings, in the restaurant business of Honolulu. Two years ago the leading restaurants of this town were run by white people—most of them at a profit. Within two years, what? With perhaps one exception the regular restaurants of Honolulu have passed into Chinese hands, and it is a well known fact that this restaurant which remains in the fight for existence is more than likely running into debt. Do you ask the cause? Ask the restaurant keeper and he will tell you "We cannot compete with the Chinese restaurants." The white merchants will be forced to bear the losses of this competition. for the Chinaman in the end will patronize Chinese merchants. As a corollary it will follow that while the laborer pays less for his food, his wages, in the end, will be based upon a standard regulated by the competition of the Chinese wage-earner. The restaurant business is but one of the practical results of our system of Chinese immigration. The Chinaman is meeting the white laborer upon the very threshold in every department of Island industry.