Of Neame’s argument that Asiatic traders would swamp white competition, Polak archly noted that ‘his plea is not that the white man should make a living, but that the Asiatic should not.’ For if the Caucasians were indeed ‘inherently superior’, then what is the added advantage to be derived from Registration Laws, Immigration Acts, commercial barriers, protective walls [and other such methods] … betokening, not a calm self-assurance, not a strong sense of breathing a purer atmosphere than that breathed by any other, but a mortal fear lest the phantom of an alleged superiority should be
...more
