The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1898-05-14
THE LABOR QUESTION.

Ugly questions about the labor sup
Dly are not confined to our own plan
tiers. One reason for their ugliness is
that the relations of capital to labor
have, as a rule, been governed by a
hand to mouth policy. Capital has
simply squeezed labor, and labor,
when it gets a chance, has squeezed
capital. Here and there in the clvlllz-
ed lands, have been rare men who put
Capital and Labor into harness to-
gether, and made a fine working team
out of them.
The policy of the Pennsylvania coal
and coke men has been that of secur-
ing the cheapest labor to be had. In
this they did as we have done. In
stead of building up on their proper
ties communities of contented families,
they imported the lowest class Of Hun
garians and Poles, and established
furnishing barbarism in a civilized
State. Now guard is kept over it with
the policeman's club and the bayonet
of the militiaman. In the crude mathe-
matics of the uneducated iron masters,
cheap and ignorant labor was more
profitable than high priced, but skill
full labor The latter was never tried
1t is now generally accepted that the
price of labor is steadily rising IN all
countries. Some time ago, we publish
ed the figures showing that within a
few years wages had risen 40 per cent.
in Great Britain; so per cent. and more
in Germany; so to 100 per cent In
France: and % per cent. within very
few years in the United States. In
Guiding a longer period, the rise in the
States ranges from SO to 200 per cent.
This rise in the rate of wages is very
rapid in Japan, owing to the Industrial
revolution. 1t has not so far serious
w affected the agricultural laborers, al
though it has reached them, through
the rise in the price of food.
The significant phase of this rise is
that it is the highest in connection
with skilled labor. 1t is now conceded
that it is the brain and not the muscle
that determines the value OF labor.
And the more the industrial situation
is considered the more apparent 1t be-
comes that cheap labor is the most
extensive of all labor. There is also
a moral element in labor, that has
real value in dollars and cents, but the
average capitalist does not know how
to get at it, or recken it up because it
is not in figures. The planting inter
tan" If the faucet was turned it
spurted. Tt involved little friction, and
no sacrifice. 1t came without any OF
the irksome obligations that enlighten-
ed labor creates. The heather were
bappy in their comparative prosperity
But the conditions change. What the
planting interest, and we nearly all
are directly or indirectly interested in
it. regards as a comfortable DISPOSE
ton at present of the labor question,
other and stronger interests regard as
hostile and dangerous to the suprem-
acy of Occidental civilization.
These glittering generalities disclose
the nature of the situation, but do not
disclose the remedy. The remedy must
be more and more severe every year.
Perhaps there is no remedy. Perhaps
the Oriental tinge in the blood of the
body polite cannot be removed. One
thing is certain, the more formidable
the obstacles are. the less disposition
there is to tackle them.
Regarding white labor, one OF the