Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1911-02-24
TO RESTRICT IMMIGRANTS and
PROTECT LABOR.

Forty volumes are required to con-
tain all that the immigration Com
mission has accomplished in its study
| of the American immigration problem
The net result of all that is found
in those volumes is to bring the Com
mission to eight conclusions, the most
important of which is that no one
should come to this country who is
not able to read and write in some
language This Immediately brought
forth storm of disapproyal. Chief
among the opponents is Dr. Charles
w. Eliot, President Emeritus of Har-
ward. He has many supporters and
the anti-restrictionist are preparing
to fight this qualification They claim
that America under this plan would
lose its place as a haven of refuge.
Paul U. Kellogg, one of the editor
ial advisors Of the Commission, pro-
poses another way out, which he
thinks would leave America open to
political refugees but would tend to
cut out the roots of congestion, the
under pay and the other evils that
make uncontrolled immigration
threatening. His suggestion is to
adapt to the Federal immigration law
the minimum wage idea invented in
Australia, that has been used there
and in New Zealand for seventeen
years and is reported successful. 1t
is now being introduced in England.
Mr. Kellogg in discussing the sub
ject says among other interesting and
instructive things:
'The very fact of immigration has
blocked comprehensive trade union
activity to raise the rate paid common
labor in the United States. American
notions Of freedom of contract and
Interstate competition have seemed
to stand in the way Of legislation
looking toward the establishment of
minimum wage boards-a govern
mental resource In England and Aus
tralia for dealing with the depressed
trades. But the very fact that it is
oncoming immigrants who perpetuate
and depress this low income group in
the American population suggests the
channel through which the situation
could be controlled. Yet the two most
discussed proposals for restricting i'm
property and educational
tests, have the disadvantage that only
indirectly do they reach the economic
springs of what is distinctly an eco
nomic inundation. An alien with a /
iull purse may yet underbid a native
for job it is not the cultural deficit
OF husky country lad from Croatia
that threatens American standards;
lie may be eager for night schools. !
Would 1t not be possible to apply min
mum wage standards directly and
solely to the currents of immigration?
H''b 10 plONlut tiit uutll an nnlDl- |
grant has spent five years in America
he cannot be hired for less than a liv-
ing wage, say, for purposes of dis
$3.50 day.
The idea of enforcing a minimum +,
wage standard upon unnaturaliZed i'm
migrants bristles with suggestiveness
N every relation; it has, in truth, that
Infectious quality which leads you to
suspect some radical flaw But if. on
analysis, the legal and administrative
Obstacles in the way were to resolve
themselves, much tried and tested ar
sument for the enactment of such leg
Station could be found in the polit.
cal archives of the last half century.
COR in essence minimum wage i'm
migration certificate would give prom
Sc of being what the wool schedule
nd the steel schedule and the cotton
chedule have failed to prove-a tar
# for the protection of American
abor."
The New York World, in secondine
he motion of Dr Eliot, says the edu-