The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1906-03-03
,JAPAN'S COMPETITION
MAY Be 4 DETR|MENT
Laborers Are Not Only Ones
Who Will Suffer From
Competition Of Yellow Men.
American Industries Already
Feel the Effect of the 1mi-
tations Of the Japs.

The question of the immigration
of Japanese to the United States and
Hawaii and it's effect upon unskilled
labor has received considerable at
tention recently, but surely something
should be said relative to the bear
ing that such immigration and COM
petition has upon our manufacturing
industries and the commercial rela-
ton between the two countries.
The Japanese 1aborer comes to
work, to gain living, to better his
condition pecuniarily, and to learn
Gin fact nearly all class themselves
as students and not laborers1. Many
of them when questioned assert that
their object in coming to this coun-
try is to study, but under stress Of
circumstances were obliged to work
at farming or at anything they could
get to maintain themselves until such
time as more lucrative avenues of
! employment were opened, and find
ing themselves in a position to &C
cumulate money, they naturally aban-
doned all desire for student life. With
their keen perception, energy and
enterprise, together with dexterity
and Initiative faculties, they are
quick to comprehend, and, an art or
trade once learned, they become
adopts and quickly engage in teach
ing others of their race. To work
and learn with them means a close
competition with not only unskilled,
but the highest branches of skilled
labor.
They have taken a mighty hold on
the cheap furniture business, turning
out immense quantities of bamboo,
cane and wicker furniture, which is
trade, because the articles placed
upon the market, owing to their
cheapness, find ready sale, and dis
place the like article made by white
labor. From one industry they take
to another, and now throughout the
city may be seen the Japanese boot
and shoe worker, the skilled steam
laundry worker, the jeweler and
watch maker, the tailor, the printer
and the photographer.
| The result of the advent of Jap
anese labor into the shoe trade
throughout every town and hamlet
in California is the driving of the
small white shoe worker into other
avenues of employment.
| In the manufacture IF cigarettes in
San Francisco the Japanese are &C
curing a stronghold, to the disad-
vantage of many white women form
erly employed at the business. In
packing teas and other store work
they are fast supplanting the whites.
One firm alone-a firm handling a
fancy brand of coffee-employs TWEEN
ty or more of them, but we may rest
assured that the Japanese so employ
| ed will not be content with working
as porters and warehousemen all the
time, but will, upon mastery of the
business, establish themselves in the
same line. Such has been the ex-
perience of Hawaii in the past and
such will be our experience in the
future.
In Japan and China there is a la
Dor with which neither American or
fetal figures from Toxic show that
ship builders in the private yards OF
that empire receive SO sen a day, the
highest rate of wages paid in all
Japan to artisans; in textile indus
| ITloS Tie uldXlulum rate is ~ sen, q
sen being equal to approximately halt
a cent.
If the cheap labor Of Japan were
incompetent, there would be little, ii
any, significance in the figures, but
the labor of the "Sunrise Kingdom
is comparably skilful. The farmers
of that empire, for instance, have
developed husbandry that is the
admiration of practical men anc
scientific horticulturists the world
over.
The experts of the United States
Department of Agriculture go tt
Japan to study Oriental triumphs Of
cultivation. And with sufficient
workmen able to exist upon a wage
that would mean starvation or de
graduation to an American workman
this country might we'll look will
alarm to the increasing influx Of thu
Japanese, against which the wage
earners of California are uttering 6
united protest.