Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1882-06-09

-!'v"l. Gnd another million of sun
dies ibe export of flour, about
which SO much has been said,
amounts to only thirteen or fourteen
thousand barrels per annum; of
coal, about fifteen thousand tons;
and of lumber, about two million
feet, having value OF some fifty
thousand dollars. There is not
enough in this showing to indicate
any great or permanent advantage to
this country from the continuance of
commerce with China.
But tho story is not yet fully told.
There are in San Francisco fifteen
or twenty Chinese firms through
whom the great bulk of this COM
merce is transacted, and it's profit
goes not to our own people, but to
the Chinese, whose allegiance is to
their own country, and whose wealth
j. par 90 t'ie wealth Of CHM. The
wealth that has been accumulated
thorugh Chinese labor has been
amasSed hv the few, and has con-
tributed nothing to the prosperity of
the masses. 1t is not twenty years
since the Pacific Railway was built
with subsidies from the Federal and
She State Government, and even of
countries along the line. The cost
of building The road was based upon
estimates of the ruling rates Of white
labor. Upon these estimates the ar
preparations and subscriptions were
made. When the work was under
taken, instead of employing the work
inSmen of the country, the projectors,
through the Six Companies, obtained
ten thousand coolies direct from
China, and with these the road was
built. But the profit went, not to
the community, but to the few bold
business men, whose wealth dazzles
the eye and infames the imagination.
And this wealth, obtained in this
manner, and concentrated in mere
fraction of the population, has been
prejudicial to the best interests of
the State, for it has been used
throughout to perpetuate the abnor-
nal conditions through which it was
first obtained.
Furthermore, the results of the
cheap labor of California has come
in direct competition with the labor
of the eastern portion of our coun.
try. For the laboring man, who is
accustomed to the standard of life in
the East, cannot work and keep his
strength on the low wages of the
Chinese. And whenever the pro
duets of his labor have come in COM
petition with those of Chinese labor
they have been lowered in price,
and, as an inevitable result, bis
wages have been reduced in proper
ton. Fifteen years ago, California
sent forty millions of dollars annual
ly to the Eastern States in payment
for manufactured products; to-day
the Californian markets. practically
closed to eastern manufactured pro.
ducts, because Chinese labor pro
duces them at lower prices than is
possible on the Atlantic coast. Ir
proportion as the demand for the
results of labor in the East dimin
ishes, Just in the same degree mus
the wages of the laborer in the East
be reduced, and unless this tendency
is stopped by Legislation, both al
concerns the East and the West, il
must continue with constantly in
creasing force until white labor il
driven to degradation or revolution.
But the tendency referred to has
} gone even further than have indi
J Gated. We have seen that the hop
yards of California, some of them o.
} forty and fifty acres in extent, ore
picked by Chinese whose wages are
} SO low as to afford virtual bounty
} upon the product as against that o.
eastern hop-yards, 1t is known tina
within the past few months the to
bacco of Connecticut has beer
shipped to. California, there made
into cigars by Chinese operatives, ani
then returned to the eastern markets
so that the cigar-makers, Of New
York, Boston and Philadelphia ar.
brought into the same direct com
petition with Chinese labor as thos.
of the Pacific coast. AS concern:
many branches of manufacture, thi,
would occur even if Chinese immi
grafton was restrained west of thu
Rocky Mountains. But, as we al
know, the Chinese have penetrated
to every large city in the country
They swarm in Brooklyn, and have
their own "Chinese quarter locally
|. known as &" Chinatown" In New
York Oity there are, in round mum.
Lers, two thousand OF them who
like their brethren in California
take the work ordinarily done by
women aud children. Here as there
they are without families, and here
as there they live in the same cheap
squalor and comfortable debasement
1t is keeping within bonds to say
that for each Chinaman who follows
the occupation of washee-washee'
in this country, family of washer
woman with four children lose theil
means of subsistence and sink to
deeper depths Of poverty.
To be continued.