EXCLUSION AS LIABLE TO BECOME PUBLIC CHARGES

In the United States, inasmuch as they have been so disliked by the other working classes, and also by employers, it has been difficult for them to find work, so that the immigration authorities have felt justified in excluding many of them on the ground that they might become public charges, even tho they have $25 or more in their possession and are in good physical condition. Altho 4,901 East Indians were admitted to the United States during the four years ending June 30, 1910, 1,597 were denied admission; 750 on the ground that they were likely to become public charges; 447 because they had trachoma; 112 because of loathsome or contagious disease; 177 on surgeon's certificate of mental or physical defects; 73 because they were contract laborers; 2 because idiotic; 2 criminals; 34 because they were polygamists.

UNSKILLED LABORERS

Of those who were investigated by the Immigration Commission, it was found that 85 per cent. had been farmers and farm laborers in India. Of the others, some had been soldiers, some business men, and a somewhat larger number, laborers in other lines. Usually they have little money in their possession when they arrive, and come with the expectation of accumulating a fortune of some $2,000, then going back to their native land. Some of them express dissatisfaction with the British Government in India, but it can by no means be said that they are fleeing from political oppression.

Usually they have come without their families, but

some, having decided to remain here, hope to have their families join them.

Usually they have been engaged in the roughest and most unskilled labor, outside factory walls, to a considerable extent in the lumber mills, sometimes on the railroads, sometimes in the sugar-beet fields, and many of them as hand laborers in fruit picking.

WAGES AND EFFICIENCY

Where they work in competition with the other races they have sometimes been paid higher wages than the Japanese-as a rule lower wages than white men, they not being recognized generally as a white race. In some cases, certainly in Canada, they have been considered less desirable laborers than either Japanese or Chinese. Physically they are weak as compared with white men, or with the Japanese; generally they are slow to understand instructions, and practically always they require close supervision. A goodly proportion of the 5,000 or so found in the United States are in California. Practically none of the laboring class are found outside of the Pacific Coast States. In some instances they have found employment without much difficulty, because the people desire to break the monopoly control of the labor supplied by the Japanese, or because the Japanese and the Chinese were demanding what they considered too high wages.

In many cases where there has been competition they have been willing to accept some 25 cents to 50 cents a day less than the Japanese. There seems to be little doubt that they are, on the whole, in the most insecure position of all the Asiatic races. Moreover, it seems likely that they are the most undesir

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able as workers, both on account of their physical and mental qualifications and of their habits of living.

STANDARD OF LIVING

The standard of living of the Hindus is lower than that of any of the races with whom they compete, altho, of course, where wages improve, their standard of living rises, if that may be judged by expenditure. Generally speaking, they are without families; they live in groups sometimes as large as 50; generally they are provided with free lodging in shacks or barns, if they are on farms; often they live in the open. They sleep in blankets on the floor or on the ground. On account of their caste system they often cook individually, or the members of each caste form a mess and have the food prepared by some one of their own number. They usually will not buy meat that has been prepared by other hands. They eat, therefore, for meat only poultry and lambs that they have butchered themselves. Many of them are vegetarians; those who are not eat but little meat. Most of them are originally total abstainers from all kinds of intoxicating liquors, and even from tea and coffee; but since coming into this country and getting something of a greater degree of freedom from the customs of their own country, some have been changed from total abstainers to rather free users of intoxicating liquors. They dress very poorly, the cost of clothing averaging perhaps not more than $30 per man per year. In some investigations made in Oregon and Washington, it was found that their average cost of subsistence was about $12 per month, but this is, of course, considerably more than that of those who live on the farms.

ILLITERACY

The percentage of illiteracy among the Hindus is larger than among any other immigrant race, not excepting the Mexicans. Between one-half and threefifths of the entire number are unable to read and write. A somewhat larger proportion of them than of several races speak English, especially if we count those who have come in lately, as they have either studied English in India, come here by way of Canada, or come in contact elsewhere with English-speaking people.

ASSIMILATION

They are not readily assimilated, and there seem to be practically none of the people on the Pacific Coast who are not opposed to their immigration, even more strongly opposed to them than to the Chinese, and possibly than to the Japanese.

Conclusion

DEMAND FOR LABOR

The conditions in the Western States, where the labor supply is, relatively speaking, much less than in the East, tend to lead one to arrive at an entirely different conclusion regarding immigration. It can not be said that there is an oversupply of immigrant labor that is tending to reduce the standard of living, as is clearly the case in the East.

EFFECT OF COMPETITION ON WAGES

On the other hand, there can be no doubt that in the case of the Japanese, particularly, and also of the Mexicans, there has been at times a direct scaling

down of the rate of wages in order to secure work. This, however, has been in exceptional cases. A much more serious charge is the one against the Japanese of securing labor to begin with by undercutting and then, after securing practically a monopoly of the labor supply in a locality, forcing wages in exceptional circumstances, by deliberate violation of contracts, to far above the normal rate, especially perhaps as hand laborers on fruit ranches. Often, too, as leaseholders, they are charged with undue cropping, to the serious detriment of the land. It is probable, however, that these charges are true in only exceptional cases, so far as the injury to the farms is concerned; but there can be no doubt that they have made both labor conditions and leasing conditions in many instances very difficult.

OBJECTIONS TO ORIENTAL IMMIGRATION—SOCIAL,

POLITICAL

The chief objection, however, to all of these races comes from the social and assimilative viewpoint. We must grant that, in a good many instances, they have taken an active part in developing industries, especially fish canning and intensive agriculture; but in some cases these industries have been developed on the whole to the detriment of labor conditions in the localities.

Altho they have developed the farming industry in certain cases, in others, by holding control of the labor market and by their severe terms of lease, they have doubtless prevented the coming in of members of white races who might be more easily assimilated.

Moreover, unpleasant as the fact may be, race feeling, not to say race prejudice, has been so strong