The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-12-21

in boarding houses make similar COM
plants; so do soldiers and saiiors. Ga
this very trip, on ii the walship5,
a seaman came 20 complain 10 the oec-
ond watch officer abJt,t tire quality ii
the cocoa a. the CdEc : mess, say
ing that il was no. cT@eJ enough: I
was pointed . him that there wa
sugar On The table and Re could always
put it in, to which he r~egnJuded tina,
thai was the cCCAS business and not
his, | think that the ~ fialnt as II
the food on t1e JstllrnuS ha; !ul n,;le
more foundation Il.e- :Eat Of the sailor
in question. Moreover | was given to I'M
derstand that one real cause OF COLI
plant was that at the government
hotels no liquor Is scTTeI. and sunIe OF
the drinking men, therefore, refused
to &c to them. The number Of men being
the government hotels is steadily in
creasing
CHINESE AND OTHER LABOR.
Of the ninteen ~ twenty thousand
day laborers employed On The canal, A
few hundred are Saniards. These do
excellent work. Their foremen told me
that they did twice as well as the West
Indian laborers. They keep healthy
and No difficulty is experienced with
them in any way. Some Italian lab
Orers are also employed II connection
with the drilling AS might be ex-
pec.ed, with labor as high priced as at
present in the United states, i. has not
so far proved practicable to get ALI.
ordinary laborers from the United
States. The American wageworkers on
the Isthmus are the highly paid skilled
mprhanicc of tho frpo- voonfjnnnd rrc-
viously. A steady effort is being made
to ecure Italians, and especially 20
procure mere Spaniards, because Of the
very satisfactory results that nave
come from their employment; and
their numbers will be Increased as far
as possible. 1t has not proved posi-
bic, however, to get them in an .h:ng
like the numbers needed for the work,
and from present appearance we shall!
in the main have to rely, for the OrGi-
nary unskilled work, partly upOn col
Ored labOreTS from the West Indies,
partly upon Chinese abOr. 1t certainly
ought 10 be unnecessary to point out
that the American WCrkingman in the
United States has nC concern whatever
in tie question as 20 whether the rough
work on the I8thmus, which Is per
formed by aliens IN any even. is done
by aliens from one Ountry with a
black skin or by aliens from another
country with a yellow skin. Our bust
nes> is to dig the canal as efficiently
and as quickly as possible; provided al
ways that nothing is done that is in
humane to IN labOrers, and nothing
tha1 interferes with the wages of or
lowers the standard OF living Of our
own wOrkmen Having in view this
principle, | have arranged 20 try sew
eral thousand Chinese Iaborers. TIL
is desirable both because we mus. try
to find out what laborers are most eff
fcient, and, furthermore, because We
should NOT leave ourselves at the mercy
OF any one type of foreign labor. At
present the great bulk Of the unSkilled
labor on the Isthmus is done by West
India negroes. chiefly from Jamaica,
Barbados, and the other English pos
sessions. One of the governors Of the
lands in question has shown an I'M
friendly disposition to our work, and
has thrown obstacles in the way of
our getting the labor needed; and it is
highly undesirable to give any out
siders the impression, however i'll
founded, that they are indispensable
and can dictate terms to us.
NEGRO LABORERS AND THEIR
QUARTERS.
The West India laborers are fairly
but only fairly, satisfactory. Some OF
the men do very we'll indeed: the bet
ter class, who are to be found as fore
e are good men; and many of the
cen. are good men; and many of the
ordinary day laborers are also good
But thousands Of those who are brught
Over under contract Cat our expense) &C
off into the jungle to live, Or loaf
: o Colon, or work so badly after
the first three or four days rs TO cause a
serious diminution of the amount OF
labor performed on Friday and Satur-
DAY of each week. | questioned many OF
these Jamaica labO-erS as to the con
ditions of their work and what, il any
changes, they wisht. | received many
complaints from them, but as regards
most of these complaints they them,
selves c~ontradicted n another. In al
cases where the complaint was at K
their treatment by any individual i
proved On examination that this IN
dividual was himself a West India mar
of color, either a policeman, a store
keeper, or an assistant ~stOrekeepr
Doubtless there must be many com
plants against Americans; but those t
whom I spoke did not happen to make
any such complaint to me There wa:
no complaint Ct the housing; I saw Blu
me set Of quarters for colored laborer:
which | thought poor. and this was II
an old French house. The barrack!
for unmarried men are roomy, wei
ventilated. and clean. with canVat
hunks for each man, and a kind O
false attic at the top, where the trunk
and other belongings Of the diffeTen
men are kept. The clothes are hun'
on clotheslines, nothing being allowe'
to be kept on the floor. In each o
these big rooms there were tables an
lamps, and usually a few books O
papers. and in almost every room Their
was a Bible; the books being the prop
erty of the laborers themselves I'll