Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1886-09-23
How They Affect the Trades In Every
American City-The Labor Market
OverstOcked-Real Character
of Assisted" Foreigners.

ject of "asssted emigration" is occu-
pying 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 a 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 liable
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
equaled the supply.
On the other hand. just look 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 as '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 unsklllcd labor is becom-
!. ing scarcer every day. The education
Y ''fad' has not yet been in force suffi-
cient number of years, perhaps. to make
this appreciable, but it is already be-
ginning to be felt. The moment q
man is educated he wants to better
himself THE fustian coat gives place to
the broad-cloth, he must work with his
head as we'll as with his hands. The
writer has had a good deal of expert
cnce in the result of education among
unskilled laborers. Some years age
he was in the East Indies, where he
had to employ large numbers Of
coolies.
East Indians are wonderfully in.
telligent race Of men, far iii advance in
point of intellect to their colored breth.
rem of the African race. When the
British Government passed law max
ing education compulsory, every child
under certain age had to attend
school so many hours day. They
were easily taught, and some of the
scholars in the Government school;
could give points to their white mas
tiers on English literature. The result
of this is that when coolie chile
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 ii
Government employ, or conductor OF
the railroad, or position of like kind
and as all these positions are NATURAL,
limited the supply in the Eas
of that kind of material is q
much in excess of the deman,
as in the West and the countr,
is full of educated loafers. With
teeming population such as India has
of course the system has too latel
come into vogue to make much appre
ciable change in the labor question
but every year it is coming more an
more to the front, and the doctrine Q
Jack being as good as his master
and ''all men are equal is likely to b
asleading one in the coolie question.
But there is another description c
assisted emigration" to this countr
which is neither skilled nor unsklled
but which halts somewhere betwee
the two, and about which very littl
is said, and that is the vast army {
younger sons and clerks that ar
dumped" every year on our shore
by the mother country. Every steam
er that arrives at New York has scor
of these embryo Martin Chuzzlewii
on board, who by education, and ey
cry thing else in their previous life
are as untitled for a life in this cour
try as any one can possibly be-. Man
are really in far worse position tina
the paupers we are trying to exclud,
For the most part
They wear a paper collar round their throa
ia<ia-tia-
And have penny in their pocket ls-da-da,
and many of them have little MOI
than the penny in their pocket, e,