Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1886-09-23
ASSISTED EMIGRATION.
The Hard Lines Of Those Able.
Bodied Paupers.
How They Affect the Trades In Every
American City-The Labor Market
Overstocked-Real Character
of Assisted" Foreigners.

of assisted" Foreigners.
Now, more than ever before, the sub.
ject of assisted emigration is occu'
plying the minds of statesmen, political
economists and sanitarians, and atten.
ton is drawn to the number of pau.
pers, able-bodied and otherwise, who
are dumped on our shores with scarce
ly the wherewithal to buy square
meal. Meanwhile our labor market is
already overstocked, and, as for unoc-
cupied land for settlement, that is be-
coming thing of the past. As to the
genuine paupers, the insane, and the
criminal who are assisted to this coun-
try, there can be but one opinion: We
do not want them and should not re-
ceive them. But the term cable
bodied paupers'' is generally applied
to class of immigrants who are most
ly laborers with their hands, not
skilled, but unskilled, and one hardly
ever hears of any cutlery being raised
against the latter's admission, al
though one would naturally sup
pose that in country such as
America is at present. with her
overgrown cities, there was far
more need of the exclusion of the lat
ter, from an economic point of view,
than of the former. Take any trade
you like to name in any city in Amer
lea. either north or south, and you will
find that the supply far exceeds the de-
mand in the proportion of almost two
to one. So great is this over-supply
that no revival of trade, unless it were
almost phenomenal, and no reduction
of the hours of labor to any reasonable
time would adjust matters for years to
come, and almost the only way to set
things right would be for the supply
altogether to cease until the demand
cqualed the supply.
On the other hand. just .ook atthe
demand there is for unskilled labor.
We have only to glance at the adver-
Using columns of a daily paper in any
large city to see such notices rs ''any
number of men wanted to work on the
levee," 1.-TWO hundred railroad men
wanted for Iowa." ETC., etc. But it
seems to be fact that with the march
of education unskllled labor is becom-
ing scarcer every day. The education
.fad'' has not vet been in force a suifi-
Gent number of years. perhaps, to make
this appreciable, but it is already be-
ginning to be felt. The moment a
man is educated he wants to better
himself-the fustian coat gives place to
the broad-cloth, he must work with his
head as well as with his hands. The
writer has had good deal of expert
ence in the result of education among
unskilled laborers. Some years ago
he was in the East Indies, where he
had to employ large numbers of
coolies.
East Indians are a wonderfully in
telligent race of men, far in advance in
point of intellect to their colored breth-
rem of the African race. When the
British Government passed a law max
ing education compulsory, every child
under a certain age had to attend
school so many hours a day. Ttky
were easily taught, and some of tn,
scholars in the Government schools
could give points to their white mas
tiers on English literature. The result
of this is that when a coolie child
grows up with all his stock of knowl-
edge he refuses to work in the field
any longer. and nothing will satisfy
him but to be clerk in store or in
Government employ, or conductor on
the railroad, or a position of like kind.
and as all these positions are naturally
limited the supply in the East
of that kind of material is as
much in excess of the demand
as in the West, and the country
is. full OF educated loafers. With
teeming population such as India has.
of course the system has too lately
come into vogue to make much appre-
ciable change in the labor question.
but every year it is coming more and
more to the front, and the doctrine of
Jack being as good as his master"
and call men are equal is likely to be
asleading one in the coolie question.
But there is another description OF
s.assisted emigration" to this country
which is neither skilled nor unskilled,
but which halts somewhere between
the two, and about which very little
is said. and that is the vast army of
younger sons" and clerks that are
dumped every year on our shores
by the mother country. Every steam
cr that arrives at New York has score
of these embryo Martin Cbuzzlewits
on board, who by education, and ev-
cry thing else in their previous life.
are rs untitled for life in this coun-
try as any one can possibly be. Many
are really in far worse position than
the paupers we are trying to exclude.
For the most part