Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, DEC. 16. 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXII, Issue 9028, 16 December 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, DEC. 16. 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES.

WHAT is at tlie bottom of tho agitation that is going on in various parts of tho world for the exclusion of Orientals? Race hatred? Not at all. Tin's is put aside when convenient, and the white mau will willingly pass his life among the black and yellow races if ho sees an opportunity of making money thorebv. At the- bottom of the whole' affair is economic jealousy. Iu California. Australia, Vancouver, and New Zealand the real objection to the Asiatic is that ho is too industrious, too frugal, and too efficient. The fight is really against tho peculiarities of tho white race. The yellow men are employed for the sake of their cheapness by one set of white men. and perform many minor tasks which white men have become too proud to perforin, although in spite of our boasted civilisation we cannot get on unless they are performed. Labour, which will not do these things itself, is furious at tho spectacle of their performance by tho Asiatic races. It is equallv furious if white men from other places norform tho tasks which Labour disdains, or works for wages lower than Labcur -decrees. Tho quarrel is at bottom one between white men and whito men. Were it not, tho Orientals would find no employment aud would stay at home. It is by this difference of interests among white men that tho Oriental races enter in; find it is by virtue of tlv.it difference that the tremendous economic weight of their industrial efficiency will be brought to bear upon the whole industrial system of the whito races.

MR JUSTICE SIM has already plainly stated that ho will not iak» into consideration the profits of employors'.'in the determination of the minimum wage. He ma.de tho. reason for this very clear tho of her day when the representatives of tlie Bootmakers' Union attempted to show by obtaining evidence as to the charges math) for boot repairing thai tho employers '-'raid perfectly well afford to pay a, higher rate of wages without much decrease in their profits. Mr "Justice Sim asked the union representatives if they were prepared to go into the matter fully aud produce evidence as to the apportionment, of profits by allowing a certain percentage for cost and management, rent of premises, remuneration for superiuteudauce, and so forth. If they were prepared to do so, he pointed out that they would have to do so in respect to every employer aud every firm cited, and that when they had done so they would be confronted with the difficulty of arriving at a basis which would apply to the smaller as well as' to tlie" larger businesses. He thought this was impossible. One of the Union's representatives suggested that an average might be struck, but his Honour pointed out that this method could not bo satisfactorily adopted, owing to tlie varying' conditions under which each employer conducted his business. Tho matter was then allowed to drop.