Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-01-19
WAGES. AND RRCES IN SIAM
---TFf----. =. ~ =. =
INTERESTING REPQRT BY CONSUL
GENBR 4AHTT KING.
Laborer Receives From Is to 30
Cents q Day-Farm Hands Get
$12 n Season.

The Siamese adult, who hires out as
laborer receives fromz13 to 30 cents a day
for his toll, according to an interesting
report upon wages apd prices in Siam, SUBJ
mitted to the State neaIhrtment by Consul
General Hamilton King at Bangkok. En-
gneers, blacksmiths. pitters and boiler
makers wages range from 621s to rs cents
(gold); cabinet makers, carpenters and
bricklayers get from 80 to 40 cents: tailors
get 80 cents a day, and farm hands may
be had for a season for from s12 to $13
These rates, says the consul general, are
considered so high that they are attracting
thousands from the fields. the forests and
the smaller towns of Siam to Bangkok, to
which the foregoing scale of wages applies.
and thousands more come from Hong Kong,
Swallow and Singapore every year. More
over the figures stated are decidedly colored
for the better by the fact that the King of
Siam is just now converting large tract
of Jungle waste on the Immediate confines
of Bangkok into a royal park, the improve
ment of which will very materially affect
the labor market for year to come.
High Prices.
One who has never been outside of the
United States, says Gansul General King,
can hardly form in his imagination a pic
ture of what living means to the plain pep
pie of Siam The laborer with wages from
10 to 80 cents day sits upon the floor in
his home. for chair costs from 80 cents TO
So and he sleeps upon grass mat, for the
cheapest bed and mattress would cost him
$3.50. He cooks on a box of earth or an
earthen crock for a stove, and eats his rice,
fish and simple vegetables out of the same
dish with his family, without fork, knife
or spoon. Eggs, which are very cheap, he
has at times: chickens on rare occasions,
and beef is almost an unknown luxury:
A turkey in Siam costs from $3.50 to s..
in hD,, hoo S-tr
with a tap roof, which generally consists of
one small room. about ten feet square,
sometimes divided by a low partition. With
in these rough walls, and on floor OF
rough boards or split bamboo, the Samese
family eat and cook and sleep. Their cloth
ing is very meager-a cloth around the lons
of the men, and around the loins and breast
of the women. A piece of bright-colored
cotton cloth thrown about their shoulders
indicates a festive occasion or an event eX-
traordnary. The death rate among the
poor in Siam, says Mr.. King, is enormous.
Fare of the Mechanics.
The mechanics, the majority of whom are
Chinese, fare better than the laborers, and
live in larger houses, of bamboo Also but
built on modern plans. They, too, have
nothing in their abodes which deserves the
name Of furniture" but their food Is much
more substantial. Employers state that a
mechanic could not do his work properly
and subsist upon the diet upon which the
laborer lives. Yet. says the consul general,
the mechanics table cannot be compared
with that of the humbest. laberer in Amer
lea.
In conclusion Consul General King states
that while wages hive nearly doubled in
Siam during the last twenty years the prices
upon the eight staptf articles of food-rice,
dried and fresh fish, trpe and green cocoa
nuts, salt, bananas and dried chiles-have
more than tripled during the same time and
| in some cases have advanced TO Ioo per cent
of what they We're twenty years ago.