The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1917-04-26
An Inexhaustble
Source OF Labor

There are a thousand indications
for those who have the eyes to see
that the difficulty to be encountered
by this country in meeting, by in
creased production, the worlds de-
mand for food is not the willingness
of the people or available soil for til
lage, but the impoSsibility of finding
| the necessary labor. No matter how
carefully we shall select the half
| million or more of men who are to
| be sent at once into military train
| ing camps, there inevitably will be
| Il serious drain on the supply OF Ia
| Dor that otherwise would be avail
| able for agricultural service. Even
| before the war, while there were
many conspicuous and painful er
rors IN the distribution of mobile la
| Dor, the actual shortage of men will
| ing and able to work on the farms
| was giving serious consideration. 1t
was this problem which inspired the
back -to-the-farm" cry; it was to
meet this actual need that President
Roosevelt called his farm life COM
mission into being; and today, when
1.-THE country faces a shortage already
| gravely serious and about to be in
tensified by an accentuated demand
|
ton of a large national army, the
problem has become acute.
What are we going to do about it?
The Congress, with ears open only
to the promptings of shOrt-sighted
politicians, has raised and strength
ened the barriers to the admission OF
labor from overseas, even where
there now immigrants clamoring for
admission. The time may come, may
even be here, when the very life OF
the nation, the success of the great
world enterprise to which we have
| given our adhesion, may require a
radical departure from our present
policy in dealing with this labor
question and may call imperatively
for decision whether it may not b
necessary to draw temporarily upon
sources of labor hitherto deemed i'm
possible or undesirable.
No thoughtful person can have
failed to note the deep significance
of the circumstance that one of the
immediate consequences of China
entrance into the war on the side OF
democracy has been the sending OF
! Chinese -induStrial~ laborers into
France under contract with theil
own Government and under the pro
, lection of rigid regulations as tt
wages, food and maintenance. 1t /:
:. said that no fewer than 100000 are
. already working in the factories ant
on the fields of southern France OF
are OIL their way there; and boil
England and Russia are planning tt
draw upon the same inexhaustible la
4 Dor supply for the industrial and ag
T ricultural development of Mesopo
tamia, Siberia and Mongolia.
T Need there be any surprise if the
4 thought has occurred to far-seeins
folk in theUnited States that in this
emergency Oriental labor may be
the solution of one of the most press
ing of our own national problems:
l So far as the States west of The Mis-
sissippi are concerned, the sugges
e ton may be/for the moment beyond
the scope Of the practical; but in
view of the possibility, nay the prob
! ability, that Canada will draw upon
r China for the men tow ork her great
1 grain fields when she finds that the
l American supply is closed or nonex,
t istent, it is worth the while of the
farmers, railroad managers and mill
owners of our own East to look deep
| ly into this question and to consider
whether. willingly or not, they may
not have to turn to the distant ORR
ent for the nan-power without
: which all their preparedness may be
put to nousht.