§ MR. DAVITTI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been directed to the probable injury to white labour interests in the mining industry of British Columbia through the disallowance, for Imperial reasons, of the law passed by the Legislature of that colony prohibiting the introduction of Asiatic labour; whether this Asiatic labour is in any sense free labour; and, whether, as the action of the Legislature of British Columbia in trying to safeguard the working population of the colony from labour competition has been arrested in the interests of an Imperial policy, some steps will be taken to give protection to the white wage-earning 1372 classes of this colony against too large an influx of cheap Asiatic workers.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThe laws of British Columbia prohibiting the employment of Japanese labourers, which have been recently disallowed, were no doubt enacted with the object of preventing competition with white labourers by an excessive influx of Japanese labour. So far as I know Japanese labour in British Columbia is in every sense free. Her Majesty's Government have pointed out that if there is any real prospect of a large influx of Japanese labourers into Canada the question might be dealt with by legislation of the Dominion Parliament, similar to that which has been adopted in Natal and in some of the Australian Colonies.