"gp24w10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Gilbert)

"Gregson," he said, "that kind of talk may be good enough for Parliament
and for labour meetings, but it is not proper diet for the Merrie
Monarch. It's a kind of political gospel that's no better than the creed
of the Malay who runs amuck. God's Providence--where would your Port
Darwin Country have been without the Chinaman? What would have come to
tropical agriculture in North Queensland if it had not been for the same?
And what would all your cities do for vegetables to eat and clean shirts
to their backs if it was not for the Chinkie? As for their morals, look
at the police records of any well-regulated city where they are--well-
regulated, mind you, not like San Francisco! I pity the morals of a man
and the stupidity of him and the benightedness of him that would drive
the Chinaman out at the point of the bayonet or by the crack of a rifle.
I pity that man, and--and I wash my hands of him."

And having said all this with a strong Scotch accent the Captain
opportunely turned to his duty and prevented us from trying conclusions
with the walls of a precipice, over which fell silver streams of water
like giant ropes up which the Naiads might climb to the balmy enclosures
where the Dryads dwelt. The beauty of the scene was but a mechanical
impression, to be remembered afterward when thousands of miles away, for
the American Correspondent now at last lit his cigar and took up the
strain.

"Say, the Captain's right," he said. "You English are awful prigs and
hypocrites, politically; as selfish a lot as you'll find on the face of
the globe. But in this matter of the Chinaman there isn't any difference
between a man from Oregon and one from Sydney, only the Oregonian isn't
a prig and a hypocrite; he's only a brute, a bragging, hard-handed brute.
He got the Chinaman to build his railways--he couldn't get any other race
to do it--same fix as the planter in North Queensland with the
Polynesian; and to serve him in pioneer times and open up the country,
and when that was done he turns round and says: 'Out you go, you Chinkie
--out you go and out you stay! We're going to reap this harvest all
alone; we're going to Chicago you clean off the table!' And Washington,
the Home of Freedom and Tammany Tigers, shoves a prohibitive Bill through
the Legislature, as Parkes did in Sydney; only Parkes talked a lot of
Sunday-school business about the solidarity of the British race, and
Australia for the Australians, and all that patter; and the Oregonian
showed his dirty palm of selfishness straight out, and didn't blush
either. 'Give 'em Botany Bay! Give'em the stock-whip and the rifle!'
That's a nice gospel for the Anglo-Saxon dispensation."

The suddenness of the attack overwhelmed the Member, but he was choking
with wrath. Had he not stone-walled in the New South Wales Parliament
for nine hours, and been placed on a Royal Commission for that service?
"My word!" But the box of cigars was here amiably passed, and what
seemed like a series of international complications was stayed. It was
perhaps fortunate, however, that at this moment a new interest sprang up.
We were rounding a lofty headland crowned with groves of cocoa-palms and