The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1906-01-27

should be said relative to the bearing
that such immigration and competit ions
has upon our manufacturing industries
and the commercial relations between
the two countr -. Ri. IL; II AZ s555< u
The Japanese laborer comes to work,
to gain a living, to better his condition
pecuniarily and to learn, Tin fact nearly
all class themselves as students and
not laborers). Many Of them :: when
questioned assert that their object In
coming to this country Ia to study
out under stress Of circumstances were
obliged to work at farming or at any
thing tney could get to maintain them
selves until such time as more lu-
crative avenues Of employment were
opened. and finding themselves in a
position to accumulate money, they
naturally abandoned all desire for
student life, With their keen percep-
ton, energy and enterprise, together
WITH deKterity and initiative faculties,
they are quick to comprehend, and an
art or trade once learned, they become
adopts and quickly engage in teaching
others Of their race. TO work and learn
with the means the 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 cutting
materially into the furniture trade, be-
cause the articles placed upon the
market, owing to their cheapness, find
ready sale, and displace the like article
made by white labor. From one INDUS
try they take to another, and now
throughout the city may be seen the
Japanese boot and shoe worker, the
skilled steam laundry worker, and the
jeweler and watch maker, the tailor. the
printer and the photographer. y,
The result of the advent Of Japanese
labor into the shoe trade throughout
every town and hamlet in California is
driving &44e small white shoe worker
into other avenues of employment.
In the manufacture of cigarettes In
San Francisco the Japanese are acqu1r-
ing stronghold to the advantage
of many white women formerly en-
ployed at the business. In packing teas
and other store work they are fast sup
planting the whites, one firm alone
a firm handling a fancy brand of cof-
fee-employs twenty. OR more of them,
but we may rest assured that the jap
anese so employed will not be content
with working as porters and ware
housemen all the time. but will upon
mastery of the business establish
themselves in the same line. Such has
been the experience of Hawaii in the
past and such will be our experience In
! the future.
In Japan and China there is a labor
with which neither America or Europe
could or would complete, Official fig
ures from Toxic show that shtpbuild-
ers in the private yards Of that EN-
pire receive fifty cents a day, the high
est rate Of wages paid In all Japan to
artisans; in textile industries the max
tmum rate is twenty-nine sen, a sen
being equal to approximately half a
cent.
If the cheap labor Of Japan were In
competent, there would be little If any
significance in the figures, but the la"
bor of the Sun Rise Kingdom" is
comparably skillful. The farmers of
| that Empire for instance have .devel-
oped husbandry that is the admir-
alton Of practical men and scientific
horticulturists, the world over. ~,
The experts of the United States
Department Of Agriculture go to Japan
| to study oriental triumphs Of Guilt
walton. And with sufficient workmen
able to exist upon a wage that would
| mean starvation or degradation to All
| American workman, this country might
| we'll look with alarm to the increasing
influx Of the Japanese against which
| the wage earners of California are ut
tering united protest.