The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-09-28

WUnLD rnUDLEM1 u
The PRESENT HOUR
Discomfort in Other Lands-Low
Wages in the orient-cost OF Liv-
ing-conditions Worse, Than in
America.
written Specially for The Catholic
Bulletin by Rev. J. 7. Roche, LL.D.)
America is Gods country but the
people don't know it. If the rank and
file could see, as you and l have seen,
the poor and laboring people of India,
Burma, the Federated Malay States,
China and Japan, they might realize
how well off they are when compared
with the people of the Orient, or even
of Europe | spent two years going
up and down Europe and know that
today it is a seething mass of dis
content. From Budapest all the way
to Cordova, Spain, have stopped off
in the different cities and towns. l
have seen the people at work, and the
general cry all over was of hard
times and high prices. When | was in
London I was told by laborite lead
er that there were eight hundred and
eighty thousand people in the aims
houses, and that the unemployed and
those dependent upon them numbered
over six million souls. Europe, with
the exception of Germany and Bel
GUM, is certainly in bad way, and
when I come back to my own country,
after a three years absence, and find
that there is still work for everyone
who wants to work, and find at the
same time that the cost of living is
lower here than it is in any part of
the world, have little patience with
those who tell me that America, at
the present hour, is in a very bad
way"
The foregoing extract is taken from
letter received this week from nv
round-the-World travelling companion.
He is a Westerner, who started out
in life, thirty years ago, on a monthly
salary of $4,000. The son of poor
parents, he learned early the value of
a dollar and made it a point every
year of his life to lay something aside
for the rainy day. AS he worked his
way to the top of his chosen profess
sion, he saw here and there an oppor-
tunity to invest in California real
estate. He bought and sold, and kept
on buying and selling until finally
the day came when he felt justified
in taking vacation in order to see
the world as it really is. He takes
pride in the fact that every dollar
he owns has been honestly earned,
and he believes that if our young men
had less extravagant habits and would
practice little more thrift there
would be good deal less talk about
hard times and high prices.
Be this as it may, his letter deals
with subject which is of paramount
interest at the present hour For
seven months and sixteen days we
journeyed side by side through the
Oriental lands, taking note of condi-
tons, social and otherwise. We were
not there to see ruined temples, or
the remains of former civilization, so
much as to see the economic status
of the black, the brown and the yellow
races, at the present hour. We visited
plantations, mines, manufactures !;
we were in daily touch with the men
who know, the Orient best-the Cath
Ollie missionaries, who live and work
amongst the poor,-we saw with our
own eyes things which the people of
the United States find difficult to be-
lieve, but they are the cold, hard facts
of daily life in the Orient, and a re-
cital of them may help your readers
to understand that our lot is cast in
rather pleasant places.
In India the average daily wage for
able-bodied men is about 16 cents in
American money; frequently it is
much less than this. Time and time
again we have had coolies pull the
punkah, or big fan over our beds, the
whole night through, for the sum OF
| 8 annas, which is sixteen cents in
American money. I have been on
the tea plantations of Ceylon where
the coolies are paid higher for a days
work than in any other part of the
country. The prevailing wage there
is from 16 to 20 cents. Someone
will probably say that they can pur
chase more than 16 cents than
they can with a dollar in this country
but this is not true. Their food, the
whole year through, is rice, with a
little sprinkling of vegetables. They
never eat meat. And the huts in
which they live are not nearly as com
| Portable as the stables found on the
average American farm. have seer
tens of thousands of them sleeping in
the streets and on the public roads
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