Lower coast gazette., 1909-01-16

tribe With the truth.
Russian Labor.
The return from the United
States to their native land Of
thousands Of Italian Immigrant
attracted much attention during
the past year and was ascribed t.
the industrial results Of the pan.
ic, so many thousands of people
having been thrown out of posi-,
tons that the general rate of
wages was lowered. The influx
Of labor into Louisiana from Aus.
tria and Southern Russia which
was inaugurated by our own
State Board of Agriculture and
immigration, together with the
cooperation of the Louisiana I'M
migration Association and the
Louisiana immigration League,
while it did an enormous amount
of good in this state, yet it has
led to come complaints of made
quate compensation to these i'm
migrants coming to their new
home. Many Of them seemed
to think that they were to get
from $1.00 to $500 per day for
common labor and that their SER
vices would be in such constant
demand that all they had do was
to leave one place and go to an
other at their own will and with
out consulting their employers.
Louisiana needs the labor supply
badly enough and we sincerely
trust that our immigration auth
critics will do all they can to pro
mote a considerable influx of la
Dor for the coming season.
Incident to this we would refer
to a bulletin published by the
u. S. Department of Agrcul-
ture in its Division of Publica-
tons, No. 545, and dated Wash
ington, October II, 1906: The
bulletin is devoted to the Rus
sian wheat surplus, but state,
ments are incidently made that
are of considerable importance to
us. They show the low rates Of
compensation that the peasantry
get in southern Russia. the rude
lives they leadthere and we know
that when they come to this coun-
try they can at once live upon a
higher plane. their wants increas-
ing as rapidly as their opportun-
ities,and these increasing wants
leading, we presume, to the COM
plants that they sometimes
make of inadequate compensa-
ton.
In the bulletin it is stated that
even on large estates modern
implements are not generally used
and that it IS often customary to
hire a peasant with his live stock
and cdude Implements, Laborers
are hired from $50 to $40 a year,
in addition to their food, the cost
Of which does not exceed SIS. A
laborer receives only S12
to $40 a year, even at harvest the
average wages of a maa with a
horse in the wheat belt are only
IS cents per day. A man alone
81 cents without board
and a female worker 20 cents.
At other times the wages are cor
'espondingly lower,
Our experience in Southern
has been that these
are excellent workers,
strong, athletic men, but,
because Of some natural
liscontent or because they have
,een misled by labor agents in
europe, they are not content to
inter into the fields here and to
,ngage in the ordinary labor at
he current rates Of wages dur.
ng the planting and cultivating
eason. A few thousands ofthem
be very advantageous to
IS and we should hope that en-,
ugh Of them had already come
0 this country and reported back
IS advantages to their home
eople to induce, if not a tidal
rave, at least a moderate and
onstant tide Of migration from
to our shores all the time. /.
EDUCATIONAL Progress In Louisiana
Statistics which have been ,
altered BY State Superintend- !
at Harris show that during the !