The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-04-20

be had should labor and capital encounter
differences in this part Of the East.
NO HASTE OR REST.
Chinese. no doubt. deserve their repu-
tation for industry. Days, nights and Sun
Gays are alike 10 them. But their industry
suggests the breeze that fans Manila in
the rainy season, blowing only TO keep in
practice. and quite devoid of properties that
either refresh or vitalize. They plod along
imperturbably. as though nothing really
mattered, and in a deliberate, calm spirit,
equally innocent of haste and rest. In self
appointed tasks. they like TO pursue their
own way. of which they are as tenacious as
they are Of the pig-tail and the chop
sticks. One OF the sights in the north, at
points where labor is hired. is the mass of
coolies, each with a wheelbarrow, the
wheel coming up through the middle OF
that carrier. leaving shelves only on
either side on which to deposit loads. The
north has cart roads, fit for animals, but
wheelbarrows stay because men are cheap
er than ponies. a half dozen express wag-
ons of approved model might carry as much
as wheelbarrows pushed by ono hundred
men, and they would do ii cheaper If trade
forced substitution. Wheelbarrows cease
TO be common at about the line where
emigration begins. In their place appears
the shoulder bamboo, used also i'm the north,
whereby a coolie makes a yoke of his
shoulders, and suspends what he wishes to
carry from the ends of the stick. The idea
is still uppermost that men do not count.
In this region the bamboo plays an impor-
tant part as a carrier, but carts are also
used, at which six or eight men will tug
and push with a load which a pair of oxen
and a driver might handle at much less
cost and labor.
If an employer were 10 suggest a substi-
tuition he would find himself striking at
various radical, racial notions, and posi-
bly, have difficulty for a time in getting his
work done at all. He would get at close
range a view of the principle that governs
division of labor; for a driver will not
handle goods. He must take helpers for
that purpose along with him, instead of re-
lying upon finding them at the places of
loading and unloading. The Chinese guild
system shows it's hoof at this stage, a
system that penetrates and controls every
branch of Chinese political. social and in
dustrial life; compared with which the
modern labor union scheme is an infant in
arms. and which clinss TO the Chinese and
o1@@0 AN NY ~. = III
guilds of locality, of trade. of benevolence,
of business, of crime; and it is impossible
to say how closely the relations of the best
and worst may be interviewer. Wholesale
transient engagements of labor naturally do
not. as a rule, counter to the guild spirit,
but employers already find themselves in
the lurch occasionally. when the grievance
of one man is made the cause of all; and
4on1= hax-a emit N snh aaI -. 4I.A -
placed as effectual a boycott on the under
taking. without the least fuss or noise, as
If it were imposed by set ~whereases and
resolves and loud public demonstration.
An employer might advertise and solicit i'm
vain until doomsday, if his Chinese help
left him feeling themselves aggrieved.
SIGNS OF PROGRESSIVE SPIRIT.
Yet while obdurate, tenacious. clannish.
and disposed to resent interference with
the way that they like to do things, i'm
pressions that the Chinese are nonpro-
g~ressive, and unwilling to accommodate
themselves to modern methods, would be
quite mistaken. They go into .fOundries
and shops, accept instruction eagerly from
Europeans, and learn to do the same thing
over and again in precisely the same way.
Having had no way of their own for that
kind of work, they see no objection to
learning to do ii European fashion. How
an employer might fare who attempted
with them to improve upon his own
methods, and tried to induce them to
abandon something that he had taught
them in order TO produce a like result i'm
another way, seems not to have been put
to test; nor is test to be wantonly invited.
considering that cases are of record in
which slips of instruction, instantly cor
rected. have been repeated for years by
the learners, who seem unable to get rid
Of them.
They know better but they always forget.
In respect to some things also Of which
they have preconceived notions they spring
surprises once in a while. Almost all over
China wood saving follows a style that
may well have prevailed in the DAYS of
Mencius. a log is propped up at a de-
sired elevation and angle from the ground.
one man mounts a staging so as to COM
mand the upper end of the log, and the
other stands or squats below, each of them
holding an end of a handsaw. Saws vary in
length from five to nine feet. A line is
marked along the log to indicate the width
Of a plank TO be sawed off, and the men
work the saw TO and fro as if they had
all day before them. They will take about
as many hours to get a plank as a steam
saw will occupy in minutes. 1t is very in
teresting, but il is not business. and the
Chinese in these parts seem to recognize
that fact, for they work in steam saw mills
and never suggest "A return to old methods.
Mills are bound to increase with the de-
velopment of rich lumber regions in the
southern mainland and archipelago. IT
may be presumed that the Chinese will
furnish the labor for them and submit
cheerfully to this revolution i'm methods
that have been handed down among their
people for centuries. In mining and apri-
culture they cling to primitive methods
and doubtless feel themselves justified IN
so doing. Agriculture here does not vet
call for modern treatment. They make
fortunes from mines abandoned by Euro
peans. and are quite prone TO assume their
CHILDREN OF THE