The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-09-07
Our New York Letter.

really want. But they all agree TO wanting
something, and they propose to get very mad If
that indefinite something is not forthcoming
The labor question is not dangerous, but rather
serious. The Iaborers are quiet enough, but
their leaders are noisy. They are unwilling to
leave the solution to natural laws. They fall
into the ways of agitators under despotisms, and
demand work from the Government without
seeming to understand that it is beyond the scope
of Government to furnish labor. Congress
directed a Committee to sit during recess, aud
examine this labor question. They are now in
session, and the proceedings are quite curious.
The leaders Of the workingmen commence with
declarations before the Committee. Then they
are brought up TO the mark by questions from
the Committee. In every case the . leaders
are discounted. 1t is one thing for them to de-
claim, and quite another to tackle facts flung at
them by unfriendly hands. For instance, one
leader says, all workingmen should be paid alike.
Well, say the Committee, if one workman is
unmarried, and has only himself to support, is it
fair that he take as much as the married man
with a wife and FIVE children. who is willing to
work over time? Then leader subsidies. There
is discomfort, but no Communism in this country.
The majority of the people have some little
property, and they do not propose to divide up.
Our real difficulty is that the equilibrium be-
tween town and country has been destroyed by
the wrencbing processes of the great war. This
is and must be an agricultural country essen
TALLY. But the abnormal demand for manufac-
tured articles during the war swept multitudes
into the cities. Now the demand is over, but
here the people are, a surplus population, a con-
Stunning, yet non-producing class; steaming and
struggling, starving, sickening, crying, without
support, and without hope of it; with no nerve
or energy or resource sufficient to restore the
equilibrium by falling back into the agricultural
lines. Besides, it will be many years before the
utter Generalization caused by the war will be
fully understood. Patience and industry seem
to be rare gifts. l often think that there is not
a contented spirit in America. There is only one
~s'caste' in America. All men claim to belong
to it. The young merchant, with his little
capital, wishes to rank socially with Mr.. Clafin
or Mr.. Stewart. Instead of saving up or living
in a retired neighborhood for some years till he
has money at interest, he Is carried away by false
pride, and maintains his /" caste'' by living be-
yond his means. Vanderbilt, coarse and ignorant.
dashes through the country in a special car.
Then all the young clerks drop theii yard-sticks
anu uEGdl1 VI u liuC VIC lnCJ lOOs cIill
travel in special cars. | heard q merchant say,
the other day, that although the city was full of
starving clerks, he hardly knew where to find q
reliable salesman. If he employed n man, he
found him always on the lookout for a better job.
The great mercantile houses prefer to employ
men who have been in business for themselves
and have failed. Probably one-third of the
counter statesmen at A. L. Stewart and Arnold,
Constable & Co.'S have been in business for
themselves, owned capital, and did considerable
trade. Here they are buried forever in these
great houses, the vast graveyards of mercantile
hopes. 4 diagnosis of the disease would show
trade on high pressure principles, and living be-
yond their means. Now all this is distinctly
American. 1t occurs nowhere else. 1t involves
merchant, professional man and laborer alike.
The market men say that four years ago the de-
mand for the earliest and most expensive vegeta-
bles and fruits came from the mechanics. A
genial old friend used to say, like to watch
the workingmen's professions. They carry a
banner inscribed, We must hare bread but
every man is smoking q ten-cent cigar!'
The way out of these troubles is slow and pain
full. In time people will learn that only a few
acquire great wealth, and, more especially, that
owing to the equalizatiOns of trade and the facili-
ties of transportation. the great speculative epoch
of America is over. The conditions of mercantile
life are rapidly changing in these States. Thirty
years ago all the importing business was done in
the seaboard cities, especially in this city. The
great profit which came from it was spent here.
The iobbing trade (selling to retailers), involv-
ing millions of capital, was done here and in the
seaboard cities. Now the merchants of the in
terror hold communication with the European
centers of trade and import directly, while the
jobbers have gone westward Multitudes of mer-
chants came here twenty years ago to make pur-
chases. Now the jobbers are at their own doors,
and the prices are the same as here. New York
loses this profit. a few years ago skilled labor
was only to be got in the eastern cities. 1t was
true twenty years ago, and it is probably true TO-
day, that a bar of merchant iron can be taken
from St. Louis, where it has been produced, to
Massachusetts, n distance of a thousand miles,
there to be made up into hardware goods and
returned to st. Louis, over another thousand
miles, and there sold without competition from
manufacturers in the St. Louis market. But the
laws of trade are working silently and most
effectually. The foreman of a New England
shop begins TO see 4 profit In starting a small
shop in st. Louis, by reason of the saving of
freight. So he is moving to that place, with
some skilled wOrkmen. Soon he will be in keen
competition with New England. But the YAM
kee will not let the grass grow under his feet.
He will seek new and foreign markets, and follow
up the line of his past successes by using labor
saving machinery. A manufacturer Of locOmo-
tives, the employer of SIX hundred men, said to
me last year; 81 don't want any skilled labor;
give me skilled machines. | can make a bog
trotter drive them" This man sent eighty loco
motives to Russia.
Food becomes cheaper every year. We have it
in great variety, though our people do not un-
derstand the preparation of it. Land is cheap
enough, building material is cheap enough. We
are equipped to fight the world in trade. The
South is now on the rising tide. The worst is
over. The imPedmenta of the social wreck is
disappearing. The old loyalty TO cotton as King
is broken up. The planters see that cotton
should be q surplus crop. If they raise corn and
wheat and hay they support themselves without
purchasing from the West. Thus they save
profits, freights and commissions. If the cotton
crop fails they are not driven to the wall. When
the South raises its own supplies, the West will
lose a great market.
There is now a most interesting development
of the live stock trade with England from this
port. The expectation of 8 dead meat, in ice,
has been carried on largely, but now always with
success. On arrival at English ports the expense
of preserving it involved great expense. and re-
quired immediate sales, even at a sacrifice. The