Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-06-30
THE DIFFERENCE AT HOME AND
ABROAD
TFrom the Bristol Courier.l

The Courier publlSned last SATURDAY
an address by w. A. Graham Clark,
Commercial Agent for the Federal De-
partment of Commerce, to the conven-
ton of the Southern Textile Association
at Isle of Palms, South Carolina.
Mr.. Clark had just returned from q
second trip to the northeast section of
Asia, and his observations touching the
expansion ct Japa9's textile industry
highly interesting. not to say alarm
The idea which some optimists seek
to convey that the Occident has moth
ing to fear from the Industries of the
Orient is rudely shattered by Mr..
Clark's figures showing the extent. of
establishments, One firm alone employs
IS, 900 operatives-more than twenty
eight times as many as are employed
by the largest mill in Bristol, A fourth
of it's yarn product Is exported, vet
enough is sold to the handloom workers
of Japan to make 75,0O0,000 yards of
cloth a year. The company Is capital
lied at $6,000,o00 and Is paying 16 per
Japanese cotton manufacturers ex-
ported in 1918 yarn to the value of $780,
462,47S as compared with .$71S,42S eX-
ported from the United Sttaes in the
same period of time.
Until few years ago, the Southern
cotton mills enjoyed almost a monopoly
churia, 1t was very Important part
of their business. In 1907, Mr.. Clark
gave notice that the Japanese manu-
facturers of cotton goods We're starting
an intelligent and aggressive campaign
to win our market He now REPORTS
have been largely supplanted, in Man
churia, while the textiles of Japan are
becoming more firmly entrenched there
every day.
Clearly. the danger of competition
one. What Japan has done to our pro-
ducts In Manchuria, she can do else
where. II the opportunity is afforded
her. Her advantages in the matter of
cost of production are so prodigious
| that We can scarcely comprehend them,
Mr.. Clark says that there are no
laws in Japan restricting. the, employ
the mills run. two shifts of twelve
hours each. Sundays included. The
workers sleep in the company's bar
sbae sx sents aay At cost
sidered high living" by the wage earn
ers of the Mikado's country.
Every fifteen DAYS the mills are
ing the day, and night shifts, With this
semi-monthly exception, there Is no
stoppage of the wheels from one years
Mr.. Clark says that wages have ad :
vanced enormously in the last ten years.
When he first visited the locality, the
average pay was six cents a day, Now
| 1t Is about fifteen cents a day, Even
at this rate of increase, Mr.. Clark re-
mhinds us. 1t would require at least a
half a century for the Japanese opera
tive to average as much as does the
| American operative to-day.
| The Japanese mills are equipped with
the latest and best American and Euro
pean machinery. They have a few
picked men from the United States and
| England who provide the skin neces-
sary for their direction, Fifty of these
picked men often> receive as much
money as 1000 or 1900 of the Japan
ese workers,
A proposition to import Japanese
labor to American mills would cause
the entire United States to rise up In
arms. 1t is to prevent Just such a dis
placement of the American wage Garner
that Asiatics are barred from entrance
at our ports.
But the Underwood Simmons tariff,
law says to these fifteen cents-a- day
| people;
"You may not come into our mills
and work, hut YOU may work In Your
own mills and send the product to this
country. We will be very clad TO huy
| II and to allow the better paid workers
In our mills to seek other employment, "
Was there ever a greater fallaCy
| Could there be more stupid way To
attempt the further Improvement of In
dustrial conditions here which are al
| ready so vastly better than industria
conditions with which the Democratic
petings WV