Year: 1871

1nStfuctlOn on tnlS matter. Every change or improvement in machinery which the laborer has resisted by violence has never theless always triumphed over the brute force which opposed it, even with fire and bloodshed. and what has seemed the strang. est thing of all, resulted finally in positive

 advantage to the laborer, simply because

 the increased demand of manufactures and commerce gives full employment to hand la

 bor as we'll as machinery. This other change also comes in, the artisan makes

 the machinery his servant and he becomes

 more and more the will and guiding hand

 that directs it. Violence has been tried in

 California also to prevent the employ

 ment of Chinese labor. A shoe manufac.

 turer in my own neighborhood was inform

 ed by deputation of the Knights of St..

 Crispin that if he continued to employ Chinese labor in his factory, that the mem

 bers of the order were canning over to run

 the Chinese out of his building, and off his

 grounds. The proprietor quietly showed

 his visitors certain muskets loaded and

 kept in order. with which, said he, we

 shall defend our property and lives. The

 members of the order on that showing. confined themselves to more appropriate

 engagements. A body of laborers in San Francisco threatened to drive off the Chi

 nese from the Pacific Mail Company s

 works; Captain Eldridge, the agent of the

 company, assured the attacking party that

 the Chinese in their employ would be pro-

 tected from violence at all hazards, and

 that 8 loaded twelve pounder was in wait ing at the head of the wharf which would be used if necessary. A timid, solitary, inoffen- sive Chinaman ,and cannon's mouth with Captain Eldridge near by, are different ob- jects. The crowd saw the difference, made note of it and retired. The Chinese work on still in the Company's yard, unmolest- cd. In fact the era of violent opposition to Chinese labor has about passed away in California. Even midnight incendiarism has for the present ceased. The work was too cowardly, too dastardIy, too dangerous to be continued. The villain caught in the act would be shot down without mercy There is certain limit of aggression, be. yond which men take the law into their own hands and public sentiment iustifies them in the act

 This whole matter of the influx of Chi. nese labor into our midst can then be put into nutshell; it depends solely upon the good behavior of the laboring classes. If they are true to themselves. true even to their own selfish interests, and even mod srately regardful of the interests of their employers, they will just as effectually bar out the tide of Chinese immigration from this country as the coast range of Califor- mia bars out the waters of the Pacific ocean and prevents their spreading over the land. But, on the other hand, if by their own misconduct and insubordination, they destroy the hold which they now have on the interests and good will of their employ CTS, just as these same ocean tides flow through Golden Gate and fill all the in- land bays of California, so will their own indiscretion be the inlet through which the tide of Chinese Cheap Labor will flow over the land.

 confess have as yet taken very mar. row and circumscribed view of this whole matter. would ask, for instance, of our Irish fellow citizens, would it not be we'll for them and their spiritual guides to con- Bider whether it is desirable that this con- dition of labor is to be entailed upon the former for all generations? Is the curse of the Gibeonites ever to rest upon them so that they are to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water for this people in all time to come? Are they to carry the bod and shove the wheelbarrow before them with out any intermission, or are they always to be the cooks and scullions of higher class? Are there no aspirations among them for better state of things? There is Providence always at work among men, from seeming evil still inducing good. and if Chinese labor coming like ploughshare the sub-soi, should lift up our lower stratum and turn it over to the up. per light, scatter it abroad even, who can doubt but that there will grow out of it a stronger and better growth? Let the Pat ricks and Ellens, the James and Bridgets, who now do other peoples work and nurse other peoples children, be driven into the country even by the influx of Chinese Cheap Labor, if it must be. to have a few acres of their own to care for, and,-yes, babies of their own to nurse. and the Pa.- ricks and Ellens of the next generation will bless the day of that Chinese advent which lifted their parents up and out of the con- dition of mere laborers, and gave them homes of their own. In this case, the children born, not in the garrets and eel lars of tenement houses in. crowded cities, or in rude shanties by the way side, but in their own country homes and growing up under better influ- ences and surroundings, will be able to

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