The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1927-08-05
CHEAP LABOR OF
CHINA EXPENSIVE
south Taking New England's Tex
tile Industry-Old Mills ReOrgan-
lzlng to Meet New Conditions
Workers Must Look After Them
selves.
By HARVEY O'CONNOR

Washington Cheap labor is
by no means low cost labor. the
United Textile Workers has been in
sistent on pointing out to cotton mill
owners looking toward low wage
southern labor The union has in
stanced the failure of Hindoo and
Chinese sweated labor to produce cot
ton goods for export and even to keep
American products out of the Oriental
market.
Striking confirmation that miser-
ably paid Chinese labor is neverthe-
less expensive is contained in a re-
port on labor costs by an experienced
English cotton manufacturer who la
ments that cotton spinning is but 4
little more profitable in Crina than in
other parts of the world" Chinese
textile mills, he writes in Textile
World, are forced to employ five to
six times as many laborers at British
or American mills. Although wages
for the II hour day range from 25 to
70 cents, operation nevertheless is not
highly profitable.
Southern labor can hardly be COM
pared to Chinese of course, but they
both work under the same disadvant-
age of not being trained to monoton-
Gus, mechanical, high speed toll.
Both are exploited, too, through
superstitions and lack of understand
ing of Industrial relationships.
Southern Labor Threatens New
England
Nevertheless southern labor is be-
ing trained to skilled textile work and
is approXimating the northern textile
workers dexterity. New England
must meet the wage differential be-
tween the two sections by better or
"arizatiOn of its cotton goods indus
try. A good many of the evils now
prevalent are summed up in the con-
GLIDING paragraph snt out to stock
holders in a mill about to be reor-
ganized:
Manufacture of fines cloth is a
filed in which New England is able
to compete and excel. The manage
ment of this mill will not be domin-
ated or controlled by any selling
agent nor will it be obliged to the
banks. 1t will be completely indie
pent. 1t is planning to put younger
men into the management and par
ticularly to develop selling of its
products according to modern meth
DDS of merchandising" MANY of the
northern mill difficulties are brought
into thi sbrief summary. They in
clude:
1. Difficulty of New England
coarse cloth mills in competing with
similar mills in the south. New Eng.
lands advantage of better trained
workers and finer machinery j,
thrown away on coarse goods. 1t i:
pretty generally agreed that she mus
abandon this branch of the industry
The mill in question operates botl
fine and coarse goods branches, bui
will dismantle the latter.
2. Selling agents, or commission
houses often skim all the profit, tax
Ing advantage of the cut-throat com
petition between mill owners to mar
ket their product. The result is ex
pressed IN lower wages and in mill.
forced to the wall through accumulat
ing deficits while middlemen wax ia
and usty.
3. Topheavy financial structure
have sent a number of northern mill
crashing. During the hectic wa
days, demand was abnormal and mil
owners pyramided capital charges
much as the now prosperous stee
trust and General Motors are doing
= lean days the mills have eithe
had to wipe out millions in paper cap
itallzation or go into the hands 0
receivers.
a. Old fogey and inherited man
agement is a curse throughout Me-
England. Properties are still indiviC
ually and family owned to a highe
degree than elsewhere, perpetuatin
non-competitive management.
D. Merchandising has been run O