The Labor enquirer., 1884-03-22

when out of work and return them to
China after certain tune. In no way
is the Chinese proletarian anything else
than slave. OF course any "trade
union" formed by them is really formed
at the dictation of the Six Companies,
and all action taken by such trade
union" is the action of the Six Compa-
nies. And any American bourgeois who
takes his Chinese brother bourgeois for
a green hand in the business of exploita
ton either of the wageworker or brother
bourgeois will, if he has not already
done so land fear he has(, find himself
most sadly mistaken. Don't we all of us
know the shrewd tactics by which the
willy heathen has outwitted the landlord
class here in San Francisco? Said Mr..
Landlord to himself when childlike John
wanted to rent his house, Here is new
goose to pluck, an ignorant one. Let me
pluck him nicely in the name of Christ
for he is heathen" And straightway
he rented his house at so per cent ad-
vance upon previous rates to the meek
and submissive brother from foreign
lands. But time came some few years
later when occupancy by the Chinese Of
that very house and of surrounding
places reduced the speculative value of
the land itself so per cent. Now John
presents himself with an offer to pay
only 25 per cent of the rent he has been
paying, and Mr.. Landlord is forced to
accept it. A year later the house has
grown into the center of the Chinese
quarter and then John buys it for the
amount he has saved out of its rent, or
one-ffth of its original value. The
American Landlord goes "out of busi-
ness,"-some of them that l used to
know are even now wageworkers, and
these words may not be very amusing
reading to them. Exactly the same lit
tie game is being played in the manu-
featuring business, and it will have the
same result.
The white employers found white men
"dearer" than Chinese. So they en-
ployed submissive John to break the
spiritof the white laborer. John came
in joytullY. He learned the business,
and then he taught it to his country
men. Soon small Chinese firms quietly
began business. They increased gradu-
ally until now it is fact that they can
control the tobacco market, just as they
do the pork market; and it is fact that
they will beat the American manufacture
ers of cigars just as badly as they did
only a few years ago beat the pork
butchers And they will drive every
mothers son of them out of business.
The American manufacturers may
fume and threaten and boast as much as
thev choose; they may put up schemes
for the importation of the semi-slave
tenement house labor of New York City,
but say what they may and do what
they can, the economic fact remains that
they cannot compete with the Chinese.
And mark what say, every other in
dustry lies open to the thrust of this
self-same knife.
Yes, our bourgeoise must go out of busi-
ness and that before many years go by.
They NAV wake up at last cursing
their own idiocy in not shutting out
slave-labor before and then close the
door firmly but it will do no good. 1t is
too late now. The bOurgeoise should
have seen before, the slave-labor hired
from another man when that man is
your own competitor in business, and
which labor you support and teach until
it IS able to work for its legitimate
master is somewhat like the viper of
ancient story.
The bourgeoise of the world cut its
own throat when the trader cannon Of
Great Britain thundered at the gates of
Hong Kong, fifty years ago, compelling
them to open a market for the opium
wrung from the bloody toll of the serfs
of India.
For bear in mind, now that China has
learned the lesson of outside cOmpetl-
ton for profit, it is minor matter to
her whether her factories are in San
Francisco, London or Hong Kong.
We Socialists can afford to laugh, even
though as forced partakers of the misery
brought about by the bourgeois unholy
greed, we laugh while ragged and hungry
and out of work.
Come, Mr.. Bourgeois, how do you like
Competition? Is it not fine thing -?
Will not your sons and daughters look
nicely doing the housework or cleaning
cutters for Mongolian nabobs?
Ho! Ho! Methinks l soon shall see
the red flag peeping out little among
these Bourgeoise.
BURNETT G. HASKELL.
Our Honorable" HumbuRs.