CHINA’S MAN POWER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1701, 21 April 1917, Page 1

CHINA’S MAN POWER.

THOUSANDS OF LABOURERS IMPORTED. TO WORK IN MUNITION FACTORIES AND ON FARMS. New York, April 4. Tile pick of Chinese skilled and partly skilled labourers is being sent from Tien-tsin, China, to France, at the rate of more than 1,000 a, week, and from Indo-China to France in at least equal numbers, mainly to work in French munition factories, according to a representative of one of the largest British manufacturing and trading concerns in China, now on a visit to the New York branch of the company. “They are carried over to France at the. rate of between 2,000 and 3,000 a ship,” he said. “It does not take a large ship to carry 2,000 Chinese, for they go practically as freight. A. Chinese can Nourish in a space that would hardly do a white man for his grave. “Only the best selected stock is going to Prance from Tien-tsin. A

large percentage of the men are six feet tall. For the most part they are Chinese who have learned something about machinery in British mills and factories or in construction ('amps. Some are agricultural labourers, taken to France to increase fond production.

“The exportation of Chinese to France has been going on at Tientsin for considerably more than a year, and the number of Chinese now in France, including those from French China, is probably considerably more than 100,0(10. “Before they can be induced to leave China these Chinamen all insist on a contract providing not only for their wages, which art! small enough, but binding the French Government to ship their bodies back to China for burial if they die in France. It also provides in detail for the apparatus of a Chinese burial. Every Chinese who dies must have a new set of clothing for his appearance in the future world and for the food which goes for the spirit of a Chinese of his class, from rice to roast goose and pig. He must be assured that other funeral ceremonies will be faithfully observed, such as the burning of a string of tin faild imitations of Chinese money, (he burning of a paper house and a paper chair or carriage.

“In our factories in China we pay Chinese workingmen who have some mechanical knowledge 121 cents a day American money. The contract. which induces them to go to France provides for wages of 20 or 25 cents a day, and that is enough to recruit the Chinese as fast as ships can be found to carry them out.

“There i> 110 (Imilii it)’ (Ik* great value of those Cliiuoso in adding to (bo man-power of France. They are hard workers, and, while (bey have not quite 1 lie stamina of Europeans, they arc willing to put in long hours and live on very little. Only those ai*e taken who are round to he ot belter intelligence than the average ('hinese workman. I should say that, generally speaking, three ot them would lx* the equal id two Europeans in ilie less skilled labour connected with making Thev rank even higher n> agricultural labourers.

‘‘Willi each shipment of Chinese go several Europeans, usually Englishmen, who talk Chinese. They act

as gang foremen to interpret orders to (he Chinese workmen. The Chinese, however, is quick, when he is in .a foreign country, to gel enough of the language to enable him (■0 do without an interpreter.

“The English and French officers and civilians who are recruiting Chinese in 'lkep-lshi and thereabout have no difficulty in getting all the men they wanl. No trickery or slmnghaing has ever been resorted to.

“It is almost certain Umi before the war is over Chinese colonies will have established themselves in France, and possibly in every European country; Whilst the Chinese who go to a foreign land always intends eventually to return to China, and often do, they have always stuck to new lands, where they have once got a foothold, as in the United States. After settling for some time they usually send homo for women, and there is soon a younger generation with a good deal of the Oriental worn off. No women, however, have accompanied the Chinese who have left Tien-tsin so far.

“While a large number of the Annaraites imported by France from Indo-China have been soldiers, and have gone to the front, I understand they are now leaving French China for France in large numbers to labour ip munition factories and on farms.”