PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES 501 



to him and of trouble to the canner. When the workers comprise 

 orientals alone, the food question rarely troubles, as then rice, which 

 is the staple food and is also as a rule ((uite cheap, meets with the 

 approval of all. But since the gangs now comprise almost as many 

 nonorientals as there are orientals, and the former find it impossible 

 to exist, let alone thrive, on rice, much trouble results when the 

 contractor furnishes them with an imdue proportion of the latter in 

 the daily menu. As a result of this condition of affairs, some of the 

 more far-seeing companies no\\ compel the contractor to furnish each 

 nationality with food to which they are accustomed and in sufficient 

 quantities. Eternal vigilance is required in this matter, however, 

 as the -wily oriental is always seeking an opportunity to increase his 

 profits by cutting the quantity of food to the minimum and by forcing 

 as much rice as possible upon the employees. Innumerable strikes 

 in the canneries can be traced directly to dissatisfaction with the 

 quantity, land, and quality of food furnished to the men by the 

 contractor's agent; and the resulting losses, which are sometimes very 

 large, as the strikes generally occur when the cannery has plenty of 

 fish, fall upon the cannery men. 



Nearly all of the workers are ignorant men; in most cases they have 

 but little knowledge of English, the language in which the contract 

 is printed, and as no paternal Government watches over them to see 

 that they imderstand thoroughly the terms of the contract and that 

 it is fulfilled on the part of the employer, as is done in the case of the 

 sailors and fishermen, some of them discover at the end of the season 

 that their pay does not come up to the glowing promises of the agent 

 who recruited them and also frequently discover that there are various 

 fines provided for in the contract, which, while they do not work an 

 injustice when the contractor is honest, yet in the hands of an unscru- 

 pulous and grasping contractor, frequently operate to the financial 

 disadvantage of the worker. 



Some of the dishonest contractors have developed other methods 

 for fleecing their employees. Sometimes they will furnish to their 

 contract workers, either directly or through some concern in which 

 they have financial interests or which will pay them a commission, an 

 outfit comprising clothing, blankets, shoes, etc., at a price two or 

 three hundred times its real value. The worst feature of many of 

 these outfits is that they are woefully inadequate for use in the 

 climate to which the cannery ship is bound. Some unscrupulous 

 contractors also sell goods to the workers at extortionate prices while 

 at the cannery. The latter is usually not permitted by the canners, 

 who generally operate a store of their own where the men can as a rule 

 obtain goods as cheap as they can be bought in either San Francisco 

 or Seattle. 



Orientals are inveterate gamblers, and there are usually several 

 sharpers with each cannery gang, generally with the connivance of 

 the contractor's agent — although it is usually an impossibility to 

 prove this legally — and they inveigle the green hands into all sorts of 

 gambling games, and in this manner frequently succeed in winning 

 all or part of their season's wages. That those in charge of the gang 

 are well aware of what is going on is patent when it is stated that the 

 men are not paid off until they return to the home port at the end of 

 the season, and that no considerable claim on the wages due a worker 

 can be paid unless the contractor or his agent know^s what it is for. 



