STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 201 



these home seekers left our State in disgust, never to return; they declined 

 to stop where they would no longer be able to control their own property; 

 they declined to stop where the torch was regarded as a legitimate politi- 

 cal weapon, and where independence of action and thought was not toler- 

 ated. Happily this uprising spent its force with only such incidental injury 

 as keeping immigrants away and deepening the distrust abroad in our law 

 abiding character; but who shall say it has permanently passed away? 

 Indispensable as the Chinamen are, until they can he replaced, it is my 

 belief that the conflict is irreconcilable, and gradually they must go, and 

 the more rapidly the better. As a rule, the farmer and fruit grower, and 

 the producer generally, stood by the law and entered his protest against 

 resort to the boycott as a remedy for this great evil, taking the high and 

 impregnable position that in this country of equal rights, combinations of 

 whatever kind, whether of men or capital, to break down or control legiti- 

 mate occupations, were opposed to law, opposed to good government and 

 good morals. Let us maintain this position to the last, but let us not over- 

 look the fact that the universal sentiment of this coast, expressed in a thou- 

 sand ways, has demanded the speedy removal of the Chinese, and that a 

 public grievance so far reaching and vital will never cease to demand a 

 cure. 



The labor question here is not the labor question of the East; our con- 

 ditions are different; our evils are unlike theirs. There is little discontent 

 there among farm laborers, because of the small farms and the close rela- 

 tions between the farmer and his employe; the friction there is chiefly in 

 the factories and on the great railroad lines where the hours of labor may 

 be fixed, and where the wages are vital, because the laborer must support 

 himself and family apart from his employer. The law for that class can 

 never be the law for the farming class; the laborer on the farm is assured 

 of good food and lodging at his employer's expense in the East, and he is 

 not confronted with the questions of rent, price of food and clothing, and 

 the nature of his employment does not admit of fixing his hours of work. 



Our great industries here must come to this condition ; our nomadic herds 

 of farm hands must have all the year employment and an abiding place 

 with their work; they must be fed and housed as civilized men should be 

 fed and housed; they must be encouraged to save their earnings; the wide 

 gap between the employed and the employer must be closed; the great 

 wealth of individuals must be consecrated to higher and holier uses, and 

 not debased to the gratification of personal pleasures and appetites. These 

 reforms come with population; with small farms; with diversified agri- 

 culture; with an intelligent and rational struggle for existence. 



The Almighty, nowhere on this continent, and I hardly think elsewhere 

 on the globe, has strewn his gifts with more lavish hand than under the 

 bright skies of California; the very exuberance of His bounty seems to 

 imply the presence of a people correspondingly near to perfection. Here 

 should dwell a noble race. Man should here find his highest development, 

 and why may he not? 



TRANSPORTATION QUESTION. 



A word upon the transportation question. It is plain that there is a 

 point of difference from lines of transportation where one product can be 

 profitably grown but another may not, but there comes a point where 

 nothing can be. It is also plain that on lines of transportation there is a 

 rate of freights which leaves a profit, another rate which barely allows the 

 industry to exist, and another which destroys it. Hence comes the impor- 

 tance to our welfare that transportation lines should be managed with a 



