The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1910-09-20
HARD TIMES ON
RUSSIAN COAST
tinued From Page one.l

Continued From Page One.)
The letter from San Francisco win be
handed over TO Hawaii for its next
issue.
Beating Their way Up.
There is always way for a man,
or a woman, for that matter, to get
transportation over seas without paying
in cash, and the recent Russian immi
grants have realized this as much as
any one. 1t has for some time been
the subject of remark that all of the
Russians who are forsaking their idle
ness in Honolulu were not going to
work on the Hawaiian plantations, and
it develops that those who have here
tofore been unaccounted for, neither
going to work in this Territory nor re-
manning idle in Honolulu, have made
their way to the mainland States or
to Canada.
How they accomplish this would not
appear to the casual observer, for they
have been getting away by half a dozen
at a time, or perhaps a dozen.
They have signed aboard steamships
of the various lines as 'workaways =
that is, at twenty-five cents a month,
anything, in fact, to get to the main
land-the lure of the mainland being
as great as anything further on and in
the future is great to the dissatisfied.
Canadian. Australian boats have taken
few; Pacific Mail boats, and Matson
| Navigation vessels, and American. Ha
waiian steamships, and sailing vessels
have taken Russians in small numbers
as sailors, or steward Is assistants, or
deckhands, or wipers, or oilers, or coal
passers, or workaways" from Homo
lulu to Canada, the United States or
Australia. A few have even worked
their way from Honolulu on Japanese
! liners from this port to Japan and
| China, though the latter have been very
| few, and they, most likely, have been
more anxious to get back nearer home
! than they were to seek further adven-
ture in the promised land of the United
States.
There was one report which somehow
gained circulation, to the effect that
as many as twenty or twenty-five Rus
slams had managed to get passage to
San Francisco aboard one of the boats
of the Matson Navigation company,
without paying fare and without sign
ing on as workaways,' the story
having it that somebody interested in
the steamship was being paid by labor
agency on the Coast to deliver, at so
much a head, all the Russian laborers
who could be transported from Homo
lulu. The idea was that somebody con-
nected with the steamship was paying
the steerage fare of the Russian labor
ers after they got aboard, without reg
istering as passengers in Honolulu, and
was then hauling down his $40 or $50
per head for their delivery to the labor
agent in San Francisco, and thus max
; ing $40 or $15 over and above the steer
age fare to the Coast on each emigrant
This sounds fshy on the first note
: and the agents of the Matson Naviga
ton Company here laugh at the idea
/. for, they say, how could such a thing
: be aecomplished7 How could thes,
, stowaways-for they would be classet
as stowaways-explain to the immigra
: ton authorities how they got aboard
: 1t may be easy for one or two men t.
/, stow away aboard vessel at Honolulu
/, and stay hidden, with or without con
: nivance of some members of the crew
: and even to manage to get ashore IL
San Francisco without observation, bu
when it comes to any such attempt OIL
the part of a dozen or more the plal
seems preposterous.
That there is any general organized
| scheme for the expectation of Honolulu
Russians to the mainland with a view
| to supplying the labor market would
therefore, appear to be without substan
tiation in fact, though there still re
) mains the probability of individual
. cases of deliberate slowing away.
A Russian, for example, who is par
: ticularly anxious to get to the Coas
: and who has not the transportation
, price, may be approached by som
/, steamship man who has an understand
! ing with some mainland labor agency
j. and the steamship man may pay tn
/, Russians fare of $50 or $50, steerag
. rate and later collect few dollars o
the transaction, while the labor agen
: who imports the Russian to the State
loses nothing, for the simple reason tina
i he will deduct from the Russians fl
= ture wages the money that he has ha
/, to pay for his transportation, and PEE
t haps more, making the immigrant b
: lieve, for example, that his transport;
o tion from Honolulu cost, perhaps, So
o or even a greater sum.
!, The immigration authorities at Sa
!, Francisco are very strict, however, an
}. the report that there is anything of til
nature of the wholesale traffic referre
J. to does not seem to have much substal
= tiation in fact.
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