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CHINESE LABOR IN AGRICULTURE 575 
opened to the workman a higher and more remunerative scope of em- 
ployment. Unglish leems now represent the force of millions of men, 
yet [English weavers are paid mpich larger wages, in comparison with 
the cost of support, than the Chinese and Indian artists, whose exquisite 
workmanship has lately been undersold in their own markets by the 
products of English machinery. It is within the recollection of per- 
sons now living that the introduction of spinning machinery into Eng- 
land was resisted by mob violence, as taking the bread out of the mouths 
ofthe laborer. Itis believed that the alarm of the laboring population at 
the prospective rivalry of the Chinese is premature and unfounded. On 
the contrary, it is thought that the introduction of these cheap laborers, 
while superseding the hand labor of our native and naturalized popula- 
tion, in many elementary processes, will open up to the latter higher 
employment, based upon the increased production that will ensue. For 
instance, it is claimed that the immense mineral resources of Missouri 
were hindered in development by the lack of cheap labor, and that, 
with 50,000 Chinese, working with their mechanical regularity and 
low wages, an aggregate production of 600,000 tons could be secured— 
an amount equal to our total importation of iron. This immense mass 
of productive industry would give rise to more varied and intellectual 
employment for the native population. All the branches of manufac- 
tures into which iron enters as a constituent material, would feel the 
genial impulse of a cheaper raw material, and would afford their fin- 
ished products at lower prices, thus stimulating consumption, and awak- 
ening a still greater demand in the market. Atl branches of trade and 
transportation would sympathize with the increased production, and 
would enlarge their activities accordingly, indefinitely expanding the 
field for employment of our intelligent native population, now laboring 
in less lucrative and less dignified occupations. Machinery has greatly 
alleviated farm labor, but not to so great an extent as in manufactures. 
Several of its heavier processes, especially in soil manipulation, await 
the results of inventive genius, which is now devising improvements. 
Until the drudgery of these clementary operations can be devolved 
upon machinery, they must still be borne by human nerve and muscle. 
The costly labor of our American population, applied to these rudiment- 
ary tasks, seriously narrows the profits of farming enterprise, and conse- 
quently tends to drive capital into better-paying investments. This 
again reacts against the interests of labor, by lessening the demand, 
and consequently cutting down wages. The American “laborer is the 
most intelligent of his class in the world. With his increased intelli- 
gence a higher grade of wants and necessities is developed, requiring 
more abundant means of support. Any modification of our social or- 
der which tends to contract his means of subsistence is anti-democratic 
and reactionary. For the present the cheap Government lands of our 
public domain, and the wonderful liberality of the laws regulating their 
disposal, offer to the agricultural laborers of our older States a con- 
stant refuge against the pressure upon wages, by drawing off their sur- 
plus of laboring force. But, with the increasing activity of disposal, 
the time will come when the public lands will have passed into the 
hands of private owners, and this refuge of eastern labor will have 
been cut off. If our democratic civilization is to be maintained, we must 
before that time secure some other refuge, some reorganization of social 
forces, which will save the interests of ‘the laborer and preserve to him 
his full share of the products of industry. 
This problem in social science is, then, no lessimportant to the laborer 
than to the capitalist. The question of present interest, however, is to 
