The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-12-30

splendid mechanics. Indeed, in GER
tain classes of work they far surpass
white workmen.
| Since employing japanese carpenters
white carpenters have several times
argued that the cost of construction by
| them would be no more than by the
japanese, but on all occasions the esti-
mates of the white carpenters We're
three or four times as much. Today,
no investor can employ white labor to
build his houses and then rent them
at a profit. nor has it been possible to
do SO for several years. This is not
/ wholly due to the fact that the white
laborer demands higher wages. but for
the reason that white men employed
to do constant physical labor in this
Ienervating climate can not keep up and
do a days work. I speak from per-
sOnal experience in employing white
men in my mill and on buildings when
I first started in. In this 1 am speak
ing of journeymen. I employ white
men as foremen, which positions they
| fill here as we'll as elsewhere. Person
ally, I have sold eighty odd houses to
! investors. but I know of no contractor
who has built houses for investors and
employed white labor.
When I first began to build houses.
| I was often offered fifty dollars per
month rent, three and six months IN
/ advance, by clerks and other employees
| in mercantile houses who were earning
/ from $50 to $3.50 per month With an
! 1eXation, however, and the hustling
/ Yankee. came keen competition and the
| consequent reduction of salaries and
! incomes; in some instances even to the
extent of one-half. I know of men
/ with families in DR.. Kincaids church
who formerly earned nearly double the
salary they at present receive. Now
such men could not live in Honolulu
today were white labor employed to
build their homes. AS it is, such men
as these and many white mechanics
not only have become permanent resi-
dents, but, in some instances, have
J been enabled to purchase their own
homes through money saved in the re-
duction of rent.
incidentally, I may mention that sew
eral white carpenters rent my houses.
OF the two hundred and more mod
ern, up-to-date dwellings, erected by me
since my arrival in Honolulu, all are
occupied. About one hundred Of them
have been sold on the instalment plan
American citizens on terms but little
in advance of prices in our cities on
the mainland. 1 can think of but four
instances where the families We're not
pure white, and in nearly all cases
had arrived here after annexation The /
balance of houses built have been for
people owning their own land and who |
We're induced to build on account of my
reduced rates of construction. The por-
ton / have sold to investors (mention-
ed elseWhere) pays a good rate of in
trest from rents received, although !
those rents, in some cases, are less
than one-half the rates formerly prev
alent. There are a number of vacant
houses in Honolulu today, but We're
these two hundred houses removed to-
morrow rents would be restored to
their old standard inside of month
and thereby crowd out" hundreds of
Families now living among u.s. Not
over twenty of these two hundred
homes would have been built had I
not built them. A far greater percent
age of DR.. Kincaid's congregation, and
of other congregations, would have
been crowded OUT not by Japanese
carpenters, but, as 1 have made evil
dent, by the high rents that would have
prevailed. Il
People who criticise should be con-
sistent. Those who object to Japa-
nese and other Oriental labor in the
construction of houses should not en-
ploy the same class of servants or pat .
ronize their stores or laundries AS {
stated in an article which appeared in I
the Advertiser a few months since,
what law is it, written or unwritten.
that will permit Mr.. Jackson Jones to
employ Japanese to cook his break
fast and not permit him to employ his !
brother. carpenter to repair his front {
veranda or stable door?'' (
1t is none but artificial Americans {
who still have about them the foreign (
imported odor of class distinction who :
cry skilled and unskilled labor Such
distinction and discrimination is clear }
~ un-American. In our glorious Unit Z
ed States, the man who spades his en- (
ployers garden or plows his land is
Just as ''substantial'' citizen and the
equal of the man who saws lumber and
.rives nails or write at his employ
ar's desk
Men may cry against me because /
employ Japanese carpenters, but they
are very glad to save twenty-five dol
lars on rent, as well as a similar
mount on servants, and this saving
accounts for many of the well-kept
homes in Honolulu today.
TFRRIT0RY'S R0N0