The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-07-30
The CnInese In NIassacnusetts.


A more deliberate and false misrepresentation
of the recent introduction of Chinese laborers
into Massachusetts, than that given in the
editorial columns of the Government paper this
week, could hardly have been concocted, even by
a lawyer who claims he can make black appear
white whenever he chooses to attempt it. In bar
mony with its usual character, it falsifes the
story from beginning to end. The facts are
briefly these:
No coolies have been introduced into Massa-
chasetts. Mr.. Sampson, of North Adams, having
trouble with his French laborers. who were work
ing for $500 a day, and had struck for higher
wages, sent an agent to San Francisco, to obtain
Chinese. On his arrival there, this agent went
to a Chinese merchant, and secured his services
to obtain them. The latter advertised, and
among several hundred who wanted to ship for
North Adams, seventy-fye were engaged. The
engagements were made directly with the laborers,
for S23 a month the first year., 500 the second,
and S2S the third, to be found in addition with
food and lodging. The merchant charged and
received a brokerage commission fee for his SER
vices in procuring the laborers. Mr.. Sampson
paid their passage on the railroad and all their
expenses, and there is nothing to prevent their
quitting work whenever dissatisfied. The en-
gagement rests solely on the honor Of the parties
interested.
There is not the slightest feature of cooEeism
in this transaction. What Mr.. Sampson has done
is precisely what he before did when he sent and
engaged French shoe-makers to come and work
for him. 1t is the same as if he had sent to New
York, and picked up seventy-fve poor and starving
emigrants from Europe, and engaged them for
one, two or more years, contracting to teach them
the shoe-maker's trade, if they would serve him
for a stipulated sum and for a stated period.
The Chinese, like the Europeans, if they prove
faithful, may probably remain in his service for
twenty years. The cases named are precisely
similar.
COOLIEISM is quite another thing: 1t finds
the laborer in Asia it brings him, willing or
unwilling, no matter which, under a contract he
may or may not have seen, and makes him, for
the term of his service, a servile tool, Il chattel,
liable to be transferred, assigned, sold at auction.
or IMPRISONED AS a FELoN, for no crime, but for
the non-fulfllment of the contract. The man
who attempts to con(ound the coolie system with
that of free labor is guilty of gross misrepresent-
alton, to use the mildest term.
We may add here, there are no coolies an the
United States, and no contract made abroad is
binding in America. Every Chinese, negro or
other laborer, employed on plantations, railroads,
or in factories, under contract, signed his con-
tract in America, and knows what he signed and
engaged to perform. He knows, moreover, that
be cannot be incarcerated as a felon, if he is I'M
able or unwilling to fulfill his contract, and that
he is free, if he chooses to throw it up for any
cause. He serves on his honor, and his employer
treats him as one who has rights of his own.
This is the basis Of free labor, and it is the basis
on which three millions of bales of cotton and
one hundred millions of pounds of sugar have
been raised in America the past year. And it is
the basis on which our labor system must rest, if
we expect to prosper.