The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1880-12-11

THE combination among the Chinese to
keep up the rate of wages deserves atten-
tion-not because the Chinese laborer gets
so much, but because he does not get the
full advantage of the liberal outlay and
advance of the planter.
A combination is not an honest union to
achieve a great public good, but is in some
sense a conspiracy to promote greed or
spite. We remember a combination formed
for the purpose of running a respectable
auction house in this city. An important
class of customers were kept away by a
combination but public feeling ultimately
condemned the Liberal policy, and it could
not be sustained. And we have heard of
combinations formed against newspapers
here and elsewhere that had their day,
until the common sense and fair-minded-
ness of n community began to reflect that
men must not maintain the spirit of chill
dren, who would not play marbles with a
comrade because perhaps he played better,
or won too often.
But in respect to this Chinese combina-
ton, we have heard for some time past
that one has been organized to control the
labor market, to keep up the rate of wages,
regulate the amount of advances, the fees
of runner ; and has operated injuriOusly
to the interest of both planter and Iaborer,
and helped to sustain an idle horde of mis-
chieEOus parasites.
We are made aware that our leading
respectable Chinese firms and business men
take no part in such combination, but it has
been entered into by the class of small
traders prone to illicit traffic, and by some
house servants, In can provide a small
fund to pay for passages and passenger-taX,
and keep their new friends for a time till
the planter or agent agrees to pay the high
rate Of wages, the large advance, and the
extortionate fees. The so-called shipper is
the cOmrade of the CoOlie who offers his
service, and the go-between receives a
SO shipping fee, and as much out of his
friends advance as the high rate will war
rant We nave heard it stated by respOn-
sible Cinnamon that one of this parasitical
class of the combination can get enough
for a years subsistence out of the ship
ments or contractings of four or five of his
countrymen on a plantation. And thus
large advances, and the consequent fees,
help to sustain a large spOnging class
among our Chinese population.
But every combination has its day, and
We uL4ltlSldAIu LAAlN a. SObLAACA
of planters is at last aroused, to break up
this labor monopoly, by agreeing upon a
uniform rate of wages, advances, and fees
by getting rid of the large class of irrespOn-
sible go-betweens, and establishing in their
place two or three responsible, disinterested
shipping ~agents-to the common advantage
IF employer and employee.
This may be easier said than done but
consider that the possibilities of such
reform in labor supply are in the hands OF
employers of labor, aided by the action of
he Privy Council anu the Board of Immi-
One reform OF improvement at
east is clearly feasible aand reasonable,
hat all who take acknowledgements of
a-bor-contracts should require of the party
o be shipped a certificate from Lis last
Employer that he had fulfilled his contract,
UGH certificate to be properly filed. This
Jain and proper precaution would do
much, we believe, to check the growing
vii of bounty Jumping" and running
way and of reshipping before a term of
ervice had expired. We urge a due con-
Iteration, and early action in this matter,
4 the interest of both employer and
lborer.
a law approved 28d June, 1865, provides
hat ''the Minister of the Interior, with the
s~sistance of the Committee of Privy Coun-
j, constituting the Board of Immigration,
) soon as convenient after the passage of l
lis Act, to devise and recommend for the T
of His Majesty the King in Privy j
Oncil, such rules and regulations as may a
deemed necessary for the good govern f
ent and control of immigrants that nave I
en brought or admitted, or that may be {
or admitted into this Kingdom as 4
or laborers, under license or per- a
ission from the Bureau of immigration, d
contract with the Minister of the In Il