Miscellaneous. 



334 



[October, 1911. 



ORIENTAL VERSUS OCCIDENTAL 

 LABOUR. 



Western conception of what is referr- 

 ed to as the "cheap " labour of the East is 

 being slowly but surely revised. Con- 

 gressman Redfield, of New York, who 

 recently visited the Philippines and 

 other eastern centres, upon his return 

 to Washington, participated in the 

 debate on the revision of the wool 

 schedule, refuting the argument of the 

 old guard of the republican party that 

 its reduction would expose the wool 

 industry to the menace of the product 

 of cheap labour from abroad. He 

 claimed that the so-called "cheap" 

 labour was more expensive than the 

 highest paid labour of America. The 

 Saturday Evening Post gives the follow- 

 ing on his speech :— 



" Congressman Redfield, of New York, 

 has been engaged in manufacturing for 

 many years and has travelled much 

 abroad, selling American manufactures. 

 In a speech on the bill to reduce wool 

 duties he gave a number of his own 

 personal experiences. The following are 

 samples : 



" Wages in a Japanese locomotive 

 plant were only one-fifth of the Ameri- 

 can scale ; but comparison of the cost 

 sheets showed that " the labour-cost for 

 locomotives on the same specifications 

 was three and a half times greater in 

 the Japanese shop than in the American 

 shop." 



I saw them driving piles in Japan — 

 twenty women, each with a rope, lifted 

 the pile ; they were paid twenty cents a 

 day in our money." Yet it cost four 

 times as much to drive those piles as it 

 would have cost in New York, 



" I was in a brickyard at Singapore. 

 Their rate of pay was thirty-five cents 

 a day in our money." But a comparison 

 of the books at that Singapore brick- 

 yard and at one in an Eastern city of the 

 United States showed that the labour- 

 cost in America was no higher than in 

 China. 



"The debate on the wool bill is em- 

 bellished with long tables showing 

 wages paid in American mills and those 

 paid in foreign mills ; but every school- 

 boy should know by this time that a 

 comparison of wage scales means nothing. 

 The cost of production may be less with 

 the highest-priced labour than with the 

 cheapest labour." 



Mr. Redfield expressed his opinion on 

 Oriental labour as he found it. It had 

 not been developed. Indeed, it might 

 be said that from a western viewpoint, 



the labour he referred to simply repre- 

 sented material out of which the real 

 labourer might be moulded. Labour 

 in the East has, generally* the same 

 status it had centuries ago. 



It is the same half-starved, undevelop- 

 ed, neglected and oppreseed labour. 

 Where an effort has been made to 

 develop it by proper supervision, with 

 proper food and clothing, it has not 

 been a disappointment. By giving the 

 eastern labourer a chance he has been 

 found to increase his earning power as a 

 producer. This has been demonstrated 

 in the Philippines and Hawaii among 

 Malay labourers, 



But Mr. Redfield would have found 

 where the developed labourer was em- 

 ployed, that the increased wages paid 

 were in direct ratio to his increased 

 capacity to produce, and confirms the 

 Congressman's claim that labour cost 

 measured by efficiency is about the same 

 the world over. 



AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL 

 PROBLEMS. 



(Prom the Indian Agriculturist, Vol. 

 XXXVI., No. 3, March 1, 1911.) 



(A paper read by Mr. P. N. Bauerji at 

 a meeting of the Zemindars and Khand- 

 salis Association, Bareilly, presided over 

 by Mr. P. A. Allen, I. C. S,, Collector.) 



I believe it was Lord Rosebery, who 

 in one of his brilliant and humorous 

 speeches, said, "It is one of the ironies 

 of the world in which we live that 

 public men are called upon to perform 

 every kind of duty, even those for 

 which they are least qualified." 1 have 

 not the least doubt that I know less of 

 the subject which we are here to dis- 

 cuss than anybody in this hall. It may 

 be asked then why I am here. -I am 

 here, gentlemen, in obedience to a man- , 

 date of our esteemed President. I 

 accepted this mandate from a sense of 

 duty that perhaps some good will result 

 by bringing to your notice a few facts 

 concerning certain aspects of our pre- 

 sent-day agricultural and industrial pro- 

 blems. 



Sir, this association was ushered into 

 existence under your patronage, about 

 two years ago ; at least I for one was 

 optimistic enough to expect some good 

 result out of its existence. It is too 

 early yet to make any stock of its work, 

 but I am sure as time goes on we shall 

 better be able to justify our existence 

 and to show some tangible results. 



