A KNOTTY PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 108, 3 November 1926, Page 7

A KNOTTY PROBLEM

ASIATICS IN CANADA

MINIMUM WAGE LAW,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

VANCOUVER, 3rd October,

The annual campaign against Orientals has assumed somewhat miluer shape this year for tho people of British Columbia, owing to the passage of the new minimum wage law by the Provincial Legislature, and the commencement of the operation of the Act on Ist November. -The law just passed sets' up a board, which, at its initial pronouncement, has fixed. 40 cents (Is 8d) an hour _j the minimum wage in lumber mills, compared with 25 cents hitherto general. For this latter rate there was no application by whito workers, with the result that 41 per cent, of the employees of the lumber industry are now Orientals. During the discussion on the Bill it was stated by Major Burde, its author, that, if the rate were fixed at 40 cents minimum, white men would accept employment in the mills. There was a good deal of speculation as to the possible effect of the new measure on Oriental labour. It was known that the mills, or many of them, could not see their way to make the increase effective at once, and it was rumoured that, to evade the law, some of the smaller and more remote mills and logging outfits contemplated paying the 40 cents to their Orientals, on condition that the balance be remitted by the employees to their employer. It remained for something definite to come from tho principal millers. PLAN OF ELIMINATION. Definite plans for eliminating the Oriental from the lumber industry have now been laid before the Provincial Government by the millers and operatives, in a delegation of lumber interests, protesting against the new law. They offered voluntarily to achieve the purpose of the new law —the reduction to a minimum of Asiatic employees—by dismissing 25 per cent, of them during the first year, and 25 per cent, annually thereafter. This scheme, if adopted, would, they say, leave only a few Orientals in-the industry, in jpbs a whito man would not fill. The lumber operatives assessed at a million dollars the cost of paying the increased wage to all their employees. Tho 37 mills in the association represented by tho delegation had an output of a billion feet last season. Producing costs would, they claimed, /be raised 11 per cent., and the industry, which had to meet keen competition across the international border in the States of Washington and Oregon, would not survive the blow. American mills operated on a 10-hour day, without any wage restriction. There was a tariff of 35 per cent, on all kinds of logging and sawmill equipment, and the mills in the southern States, where British Columbia also has sharp competition, operated in many cases on an 11-hour day, with common labour, based on 15 to 17i cents (7^d to BJd) 'an hour. There was no profit under present conditions in this market, but, as it was the only output for tho large production going on, the British Columbia mills Were forced to accept low prices, often at considerable loss. FUTURE OF THE ORIENTALS. If the Oriental is eliminated from tho lumber industry, there is at present no indication where he will be absorbed. His economic condition in British Columbia is so high that he is determined to stay. Tho proportion of Orientals employed in industries is: Logging, 7 per cent.; lumber, 41 per cent.; sawmills, 39 per cent.; shingle mills, 51 per cent.; baking, 16 per cent.; fishing, 39 per cent.; fruit canning, 15 per cent, pulp and paper mills, 37 per cent. "Oriental activity i.a this, country threatens the very activity of the Anglo-Saxon on the Pacific Coast." said the Minister of Immigration in the Provincial Cabinet, in moving the last exclusion law, which was vetoed by the Federal Senate at Ottawa, after passing the Provincial Assembly and the Federal House of Representatives. The attitude of the Federal Government on the question is stated by the, Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King: "While economic and labour conditions, resulting from the immigration of Asiatics, must be taken into consideration, there are international and Imperial questions involved. No Dominion within the Empire would be well advised to pass legislation that would give offence to an entire nation. They might, however, justifiably exclude certain classes, and set limits on members." The Privy Council dismissed an appeal from a decision of the Supreme Court Of Canada, relating to the employment of Japanese labour in the Dominion. In dismissing the appeal, it was held that an Act of the Legislature of British Columbia, enabling the restriction of the employment of Oriental labour, was contrary to the previsions of a treaty between the King and the, Emperor of Japan, and was in conflict with the British North America u Act, the basis of the Constitution of Confederate Canada. There are at present 50,000 Orientals in Canada, of whom 40,000 are in British Columbia.