Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-04-30

And the women with children strap
lped on their backs while they steer
boats and handle passengers and traf-
fic about Hong Kong!
Or leave. II you will, the water
front at Hong Kong and make the
hard climb up the steep. bluff-like
l1,SO0-foot mountainside, dotted with
the handsome residences Of wealthy
Englishmen; you can hardly believe
THAT every massive timber, every ton
Of brick, every great foundation stone,
was carried up, up from the town be-
low by the tug and strain Of human
muscle-not merely human muscle
but in most cases the muscle Of wo-
men! Probably no governor In any
state in America lives in a residence
so splendid as that of the British gov
ernor-general of Hong Kong-cer-
tainly no governors residence Is so
beautifully situated, halfway up a
sheer n-slope-and yet the
wife of the governor-general told me
that the material used in the building
was brought up the mountainside by
women!
The women in Calcutta (some of
them with their babies staked out like
calves while they worked) whom l
saw carrying brick and mortar on
their heads to the tops of three and
four-story brick buildings, get 8 to 4
annas a day. to 8 cents.
In Darjeeling the bent and toll
cursed women I found laden like dom
keys as they brought stone on their
backs from quarries two or three miles
away, managed to make IL to 16 cents
a day for their bitter toll up steep
hills and down; but women who car
ried lighter loads Of mud, making so
trips averaging 20 miles Of travel a
day, earned only cents. The same
wages were paid the women with ba-
bies strapped on their backs, who nev-
ertheless toiled as steadily as the
others.
Hardly better fare the women in the
oriental factories. I know mills In
Shanghai where women work thirteen
and a quarter hours for IL cents a
day; and in most cases the women in
eastern factories are. herded together
in crowded compounds little better
than the workhouse for American
criminals!
| Or consider the rice farmers who
wade through mud knee-deep to plant
the rice by hand, cultivate 1t with
primitive tools, and harvest 1t with
sickles. And after all this, they must
often sell the rice they grow, and
themselves buy cheaper mullet or
poorer rice for their food. The situa-
ton has probably improved somewhat
since Col. Charles DENLY published his
book five years ago, but in its general
outlines the plight Of the typical Chi
nese farmer as described by him then
is true today:
| The average wage Of a able-bodied
young man is $12 per annum, with food
and lodging. straw shoes and free
shaving-an important item in coun-
try where heads must be shaved three
or four times month. His clothing
costs about 81 per annum. In ten
Years he may buy one-third Of an acre
of land ($150 per acre. and necessary
implements. In ten years more he
may double his holdings and become
part owner in water buffalo. In six
wears more he can procure wife and
live comfortably on his estate. Thus
in twenty-six years he has gained a
competence,
Over Population Not the Explanation.
So much by way of faint picture
of existing industrial conditions In the
Orient. Now for the lesson.
Ordinarily, Of course, when one
asks the question, why Is 1t tina: the
oriental gets such low wages, anc has
such a low earning power?" the an
swer is "An over-crowded population.
In China, for example, four hundred
million people, one-fourth the human
race, crowded within the limits Of one
empire. This is the cause"
| 1 don't believe it.
There is a limit, no doubt, beyond
which increase Of population even
with the most highly developed system
Of industry, might lead to such a re-
suit, but do not believe that this linn
1t has been reached in China. The
people in England live a great deal
better today than they did when Eng
land had only one-tenth its present
population. The average man In your
country has more conveniences. COM
forts and a better income than he had
in your grandfather's day when the
population was not nearly so dense.
The United States with a population
Of ninety million pays its laborers
vastly better than it did when its pop
ulation was only thirty million.
The truth Is that every man should
be able to earn little more than he
consumes; there should be margin,
an excess, that should constitute his
contribution to the common wealth,
to the race. Our buildings, roads,
| IrallrOaQS, CnuTcheS, cdlueuIdiS anu
works of art-everything that makes
the modern world a better place than
the primitive world-represent the
combined contributions Of all previous
men and races. And if society be so
able to handle men that they produce
any fraction more than they consume.
the more men the better the world.
My own conviction is that the orien-
tai nations are poor not because OF
their defective industrial organiza-
tions, but because they do not provide
men, tools and knowledge to work
with
Ignorance and Lack Of Machinery.
Ignorance and lack Of machinery
these have kept Asia poor, knowledge
and modern tools-these have made
America rich.
i If Asia had a Panama canal to dig
she would dig it with picks. hoes and
spades, and tote out the earth In buck
cts. Nothing but human bone and
sinew would be employed, and the
u.o,,ld ha noid LITTLE bpcanSe