CHINESE CHEAP LABOUR IN MELBOURNE.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 46, 22 August 1895, Page 2

CHINESE CHEAP LABOUR IN MELBOURNE.

IT PRACTICALLY MONOPOLISES THE CABINET-MAKING. fPBEBS ASSOCIATION. I (Received August 22, 11.10 a.m.) MziißOtroNs, Tine Day. The Age, in urging the necessity for legislation in connection with the Chinese cabinetmaking trade, dcolares that at present thero are not 50 European cabinetmakers at work in Melbourne, while fully 500 Chinese are busily engaged night and day, and in many oases on Sundays. For what little work tho white man can seoure he is shamefully paid, and he oan hardly earn subsistence. The writer says that fully 80 per cent, of the furniture sold in the oity oomes from the Chinese dens, and the European middlemen give tho fullest encouragement to this trade, as by bnying oheap Chinese furniture and selling it as Kuropean they derive fat profits. Thus tho trail of the Chinaman ii over nearly every furnished house in Melbourne. The upholsterers renovating Government Honse for the recaption of Lord Brosßey discovered that not a few of the articles supplied by Europeans unquestionably bear the stamp of the cheap ChineßO manufaoturer. Whenever any Enropean manufactured article finds favour the middleman sends to the Chinese, who produce a cheap imitation. Some of the Chinese work for food alone, and others labour 15 hours per day for a few shillings per week.