AMERICAN SHOEMAKERS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 936, 6 February 1871, Page 2

AMERICAN SHOEMAKERS.

The shoemakers in the United States have one of the most powerful trade unions in the country. This union, which goes under the name of the " Knights of St. Crispin," numbers its members by tens of thousands, and is so especially strong in Massachusetts, where the shoe-factories are chiefly located, that last autumn it supported a special ' labor ' candidate for governor, secured him many thousand votes, and succeeded in electing several members of the Massachusetts Legislature. A trade union of suc&

strength would naturally be involved in constant troubles with its employers, especially at a time like the present, when declining prices make reduced wa ges a necessity. During the past year j n all the shoe manufacturing towns of Massachusetts there have been strikes, lockouts, and other troubles. Finally, an employer at North Adams resolved to try the experiment of coolie labor, and made a contract with the Chinese company at Kwong Chong, at San Francisco, for seventy-five picked laborers, who were to be men of intelligence and good character, and were to £ind themselves to work for three years, with the privilege of ten, the company to make up any deficiencies caused by bad behaviour or desertion. The employer, Mr Calvin T. Sampson, is to pay each coolie twenty-three dollars a-month for the first year, and twenty-eight dollars a-month afterwards. He is to pay their transportation expenses, is to furnish lodging, and fuel for cooking, and is to pay two Chinese cooks, who are also to be " councillors" and book-keepers for die colony. The Chinese are to board and clothe themselves. A Chiuese foreman or overseer, who has had experience of American life in California, but is not a shoemaker, is to look after the men, interpret for them, and keep them up to their duties, for the monthly consideration of sixty dollars. The body of any dead Chinaman is to be sent back to the company at San Francisco fur shipment to China for burial. These coolies have arrived at North Adams, and are employed as " bottomers." They are said to be learning their work (of which all were previously ignorant) with facility, and to give promise of making good and quick workmen. A second detachment of coolies has since arrived in Massachusetts fur another shoe-manufacturer ; and a shirt-maker in New Jersey, who lias been watching the process of instructing them at North Adams, is said to have been so much pleased with them that he intends to import a colony for labor in his own factory. If the shoemakiuo; experiment succeeds, it will not be long before employers everywhere and in all trades will be importing Chinamen, as a check to the high wages and trade-union tyranny now causing so much difficulty and annoyance in many branches of industry in the United States.