700 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[Shitkmber 1, 1917. 



swarmed aboard at Cebu and overran all of the lower deck, I 

 began to ask questions. 



"Good workers? Sure," said the planter to whom they were 

 consigned. "Better than Chinamen. We pay their passage down 

 and they work, say, for a season or for a year, and then go 

 homo. In that lot are 20 old hands. The rest are new recruits. 

 Labor scarce? I should 

 worry ! Aren't we ship- 

 ping lots of these same 

 Visayans to Hawaii to 

 work on the sugar planta- 

 tions there?" 



"Do you have trouble 

 with them ?" I asked. 



"Some. That little cler- 

 ical-looking chap aft is an 

 agitator. He is from Ma- 

 nila and is down here to 

 start trouble. When we 

 come to my pier he will 

 make impassioned speeches 

 and try to get the men on 

 a strike. His stunt will 

 be to yell, 'You have been 

 deceived ! Do not get oft 

 the boat.' It will appeal 

 to some of them, but my 

 20 old hands, who want 

 the work and who know 

 they are well treated, will 

 pull the other way and we don't lose many of them, if any." 

 The laborers are easily managed, but are very like children, 

 and the employer needs to be not only just, but tactful and ex- 

 ceedingly pa- 

 tient. For ex- 

 ample, a rubber 

 tapper comes to 

 him with a fin- 

 ger bound up 

 in cloth and 

 starts to ex- 

 plain how he 

 hurt it. how 

 extremely pain- 

 ful it is, that it 

 throbs and 

 burns, and that 

 he is totally in- 

 capacitated for 

 work. When 

 the first pause 

 Climes, the em- 

 ployer, if he be 

 tactful, desires 

 to see it. Then 

 c o m e s the 

 slow unwrap- 

 ping. This may 

 take several 

 minutes, for it 

 is accompanied 

 by further 



lengthy descriptions of symptoms. During this recital the un- 

 covering of the wound is abandoned, for one must perforce use 

 convincing and appropriate gestures. Then, too, the narrator 

 becomes so enthralled with his tale of suffering that he forgets 

 the wound and abandons himself to a perfect orgy of painful 

 experience and self pity. When at last a tiny scratch is un- 

 covered, gravely examined and gingerly touched with carbolated 



vaseline, the cure is complete and the man goes^back to work 

 wholly satisfied. 



If, however, the employer refuses to consider and treat the 

 scratch and brusquely sends the man away, he is likely to spoil 

 an otherwise competent laborer. The man will depart grum- 

 blin.i?, his sense of injury will grow and he will continue trou- 

 bled, half sick and wholly 

 useless. 



{To be continued.) 



Freightkr Lo.'^dinc Cocoxut Oil ^^ Opon 



FiLipixo Fishing Boat. 



WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION 

 ACTS. 



The National Industrial 

 Conference Board, Boston, 

 Massachusetts, compos- 

 ed of representatives of 

 16 national industrial as- 

 sociations, including The 

 Rubber Association of 

 America, has published 

 an eight-page s^immary 

 of the Board's report on 

 tlie legal phase of Work- 

 men's Compensation Acts 

 in the United States. The 

 history of such laws is 

 outlined briefly, supple- 

 mented by tables show- 

 ing when they were en- 

 acted by the different 

 states, territories, foreign countries and provinces. The com- 

 pensation principle and constitutional questions involved are 

 reviewed, and special emphasis is laid upon the lack of uni- 

 formity in state laws and the inconsistencies growing out 

 of their interpretation. An exclusively compulsory compen- 

 sation system 

 is advocated 

 t h r o u g h o u t 

 the country to 

 be substitu- 

 tional for and 

 not supple- 

 niental to em- 

 ployer's liabil- 

 ity, claims to 

 be settled di- 

 rectly between 

 employer and 

 employe con- 

 ditioned by 

 adequate safe- 

 guards for the 

 protection 

 of the latter. 

 The compila- 

 tion, under ex- 

 pert guidance, 

 of a p e r ni a - 

 nent, scientific, 

 uniform sys- 

 tem of a c c i - 

 dent data, com- 

 pensation sta- 

 t i s t i c s and 

 judicial deci- 

 sions, it is 



stated, would go a long way toward establishing definite 

 insurable standards of liability and of equitable premium 

 rates. The full report is obtainable at $1 per copy postpaid. 



The "Mixd-\n.\o" on the Be.'kch. 



