The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-09-20
Beating Their Way Up.


I issue.
Beating Their Way Up.
There is always a way for a man,
| or a woman. for that matter, to get
/ TRANSFORMATION over seas without paying
| in cash. and the recent Russian lmml
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 forsaklng 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-
naming 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 dozen
at time, or perhaps dozen.
They have signed aboard steamships
of the various lines as - workaways' =
that is. at twenty-five cents 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
waian steamships, and sailing vessels
have taken Russians in small numbers
as sailors, or steward s assistants, or
deokhands. or wlpers, 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 head, all the Russian laborers
who could be transported from Homo
lulu. The idea was that somebody con-
neeted with the steamship was paying
the steerage fare of the Russian labor
ers after they got aboard, without reg
isterlng 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 so or SIS over and above the steer
age fare to the Coast on each emigrant.
This sounds fishy on the first note,
and the agents of the Matson Naviga-
ton Company here laugh at the idea.
for, they say, how could such thing
be Accomplished How could these
stowaways-for they would be classed
as stowaways-explain to the immig ra
ton authorities how they got aboarda
1t may be easy for one or two men to
stow away aboard a vessel at Honolulu
and stay hidden, with or without con-
nivance of some members of the crew,
and even to manage to get ashore in
San Francisco without observation, but
when it comes to any such attempt on
the part of dozen or more the plan
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 Coast
and who has not the transportation
price, may be approached by some
steamship man who has an understand
ing with some mainland labor agency,
and the steamship man may pay the
Russian s fare of $50 or $50. storage
rate. and later collect few dollars on
the transaction, while the labor agent
who imports the Russian to the States
loses nothing. for the simple reason that
he viii deduct from the Russian s fu-
tnre wages the money that he has had
to pay for his transportation, and per-
haps more, making the immigrant be
heve. for example. that his transporta-
tion from Honolulu cost, perhaps, $50.
or even greater sum.
The immigration authorities at San
Francisco are very strict. however, and
the feport that there is anything of the
nature Of the wholesale traffic referred
to does not seem to have much Suhstau-