In this connection the following table, which shows the amount of money brought to the United States by 79 East Indians from whom schedules were secured, is given:

TABLE 3.-Money brought to the United States by East Indians.

The next table shows the number of East Indian immigrants bringing $50 and over and the number bringing less than $50, as given in the reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration.

TABLE 4.-Money brought to the United States by East Indians during the years 1905 to 1909.

Table 5, also compiled from the reports of the CommissionerGeneral of Immigration, shows other salient facts in regard to the East Indian immigrants.

TABLE 5.-General data for East Indian immigrants.

TABLE 5.-General data for East Indian immigrants-Continued.

The table shows the small number of females of this race who have come to the United States, and their number has not been increasing in proportion to the increase in number of immigrants, for members of the laboring class now coming in large numbers do not bring their wives.

This table indicates the number giving India or British North America as their last permanent residence. These have been the two main sources of the East Indian immigration. As shown under the head of "intended destination " previous to 1905 nearly all of the East Indians were bound for Eastern States. Of these New York received the majority. The immigration of East Indians to the three Pacific Coast States, Washington, Oregon, and California, practically began in 1905, when it will be noted they gave British North America as their "last permanent residence." For the years 1905 to 1909 inclusive, British Columbia was the principal source of East Indian immigration to the Pacific Coast States. Most of those giving India as their last permanent residence came via British Columbia. Since 1905 the Pacific Coast States have received nearly all of the rapidly increasing immigration of this race.

It will be noted in the table that since 1905 the proportion giving the three occupations "farmer," "farm laborer," and "laborer" has increased until in 1908 out of 1,710 immigrants 1,380 were laborers, 123 farm laborers, and 58 farmers.

Of the total of 5,317 admitted during the years 1905 to 1910, inclusive, 778 had been employed in agricultural work, while 3,623 had been "laborers" abroad. Of 473 East Indians in the United States from whom agents of the Commission secured personal data, 402 had been engaged in agriculture, 10 in business and in the trades, and 16 in the other occupations as wage-earners, while 16 had been soldiers and 6 had had no occupation before leaving their native land. That the Commissioner-General of Immigration reports more as laborers while the agents' schedules show more farm workers is due to the fact that in coming from Canada the East Indians gave their occupation as laborers, referring to their work in Canada. The East Indian immigrants came from the Punjab, a farming section of India. Previous to 1905 the majority of the few East Indians coming to the United States were professional men, merchants, and travelers. The

great influx since 1905 has been of the "coolie " class. It will also be seen that the proportion of illiterates has greatly increased.

The first East Indians settling in the Pacific Coast States in noticeable numbers came from British Columbia, so that their migration to Canada will be considered. The number entering Canada is as follows: 1905, 45; 1906, 387; 9 months to March 31, 1907, 2,124; 1908, 2,623; 1909, 6. Total, 5,185.

In speaking of the causes of the East Indian immigration to Canada, the Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, royal commissioner, says as follows:

The influx of recent years has not been spontaneous, but owes its existence in the main to (1) the activity of certain steamship companies and agents desirous of selling transportation and profiting by the commission; (2) the distribution throughout some of the rural districts of India of literature concerning Canada and the opportunities of fortune making in the province of British Columbia; and (3) the representations of a few individuals in the province of British Columbia, among the number a Brahmin named Davichand and certain of his relatives, who induced a number of the natives of India to come to Canada under actual or verbal agreements to work for hire, the purpose being that of assisting one or two industrial concerns to obtain a class of unskilled labor at a price below the current rate and at the same time of exploiting their fellow-subjects to their own advantage. Some of the natives may have emigrated to Canada of their own accord or because of the advice or desire of some relatives who had come to this country, but had the influence here mentioned not been exerted it is certain that their numbers would not have been appreciable."

Later, in another report," Mr. King says:

That Canada should desire to restrict immigration from the Orient is regarded as natural; that Canada should remain a white man's country is believed to be not only desirable for economic and social reasons, but highly necessary on political and national grounds.

* * *

It is clearly recognized in regard to emigration from India to Canada that the native of India is not a person suited to this country; that, accustomed, as many of them are, to conditions of a tropical climate and possessing manners and customs so unlike those of our own people, their inability to readily adapt themselves to surroundings entirely different could not do other than entail an amount of privation and suffering which render a discontinuance of such immigration most desirable in the interest of the Indians themselves. It was recognized, too, that the competition of this class of labor, though not likely to prove effective, if left to itself, might, none the less, were the numbers to become considerable (as conceivably could happen were self-interest on the part of individuals to be allowed to override considerations of humanity and national well-being and the importation of this class of labor under contract permitted), occasion considerable unrest among the workingmen whose standard of comfort is of a higher order, and who, as citizens with family and civic obligations, have expenditures to meet and a status to maintain which the coolie immigrant is in a position wholly to ignore.

The East Indian immigrants were not welcome in British Columbia, and the opposition to them led to insurmountable barriers being erected against them, which accounts for the decline in their numbers in 1909 when only 6 were admitted. The most formidable of these barriers is the application to East Indian immigrants of section 38 of the Canadian immigration act which provides that immigrants who have come to Canada otherwise than by continuous journey from the country of which they are natives or citizens, and

any

a Report of the royal commissioner appointed to inquire into the methods by which oriental laborers have been induced to come to Canada. Ottawa, 1908, p. 76.

Report by W. L. Mackenzie King, deputy minister of labor on mission to England to confer with the British authorities on the subject of immigration to Canada from the Orient and immigration from India in particular.

upon through tickets purchased in that country, may be excluded. This provision has been peculiarly efficient because there is no means by which a continuous journey from India to Canada can be accomplished. Another deterrent was an order in council dated June 3, 1908, by which the amount of money required in the case of East Indians was increased from $25 to $200.

The East Indians in Canada are engaged in sawmill and shingle mill work, in the construction and maintenance of way of railroads, and during the fishing season in the salmon canneries on the Frazer River. They are usually common laborers, but in the lumber mills of British Columbia they are engaged in more skilled positions than they ever have been in the United States. In Canada they are the cheapest grade of labor. In the lumber mills of British Columbia they receive from 80 cents to $1.25 per day without board, while Japanese get $1 to $1.75, and white men for the same work $1.75 and over per day. The wages paid East Indians in British Columbia are less than those paid them in the mill work in the United States, and that caused many of them to come to the State of Washington.

The action taken in Canada in 1908, which prevented the further immigration of East Indians to British Columbia, reduced the number leaving British Columbia for the Pacific Coast States, and the number entering this country was also kept low by the more stringent policy of the immigration bureau in that year.

In the year 1910 the number of East Indian immigrants has again become large (1,782 entering from July 1, 1909, to June 30, 1910, inclusive), but this is mainly a direct immigration from India to our western ports, for very few are now coming from British Columbia. During the first nine months of the calendar year 1910, 1,401 were admitted, while 623 were denied admission at the Port of San Francisco.

The East Indian coolie immigrants coming from British Columbia were first employed in Washington, but later they began gradually to go farther south into Oregon and later to California, until now the great majority of them are in the last-mentioned State. Their migration from one section to another and the industries in which they have been engaged are shown in the chapter next presented.

a Tariff Hearings, Committee on Ways and Means, Sixtieth Congress, 1908–9, Vol. III, p. 3171, et seq.

Because of the criticism of the administration of the immigration law in the case of the East Indians, the following statement is given, showing the number of East Indians admitted at San Francisco and the number rejected, with the cause assigned, during nine months of 1910:

Janu-Feb- March. April. May. June. July. August. Sep- Total.

ary. ruary..

tember.

CHAPTER III.

EMPLOYMENT OF EAST INDIANS IN COAST STATES.

IN LUMBER MILLS AND ROPE FACTORY.

When the East Indians came to the State of Washington they found their first employment in the lumber industry. In 1906 they were employed in considerable numbers in the mills between Tacoma and Bellingham. Reports of higher wages received in the United States soon brought a large number from British Columbia.

The East Indians met with little difficulty in entering the lumber industry because there was a scarcity of men to do the rougher and heavier work. It appears they were not used to undermine the existing wage scale or to replace striking lumbermen. In spite of their general willingness to work for less, East Indians have often been paid the same as white men, lest the latter should object on the ground that the wage scale had been undermined. Of 53 men employed in 6 mills visited, 1 received $1.50 per day; 3, $1.55; 16, $1.60; 17, $1.65; 6, $1.70; 2, $1.75; 2, $1.80; 3, $1.85; 3, $2. The average was $1.67, which is somewhat more than the Japanese, but less than white men, are paid. That the East Indians have not been worth this wage has been one cause of their decreasing number in this industry. At the time of this investigation they were found in 6 mills. Their general disappearance, however, has been due primarily to the hostile attitude of the white workmen. This prejudice against them is due partly to race feeling and partly to a dislike of the East Indian dress, religion, and manner of living, and, further, it may be attributed to the fact that they were cheap laborers in British Columbia and had been employed by a railroad company as strike breakers in Tacoma. At Bellingham, where most of the East Indians were employed, there was rioting against them, and they left the community fearing bodily injury. This experience has caused them to be generally discriminated against by employers. It is now difficult for them to find employment in the lumber mills of Washington.

A few East Indians have been employed in the lumber mills of Oregon and California, but not many are now so employed.

The members of this race have been employed only as common laborers, usually in the lumber yards. There is a difference of opinion among those who have employed East Indians at labor of this kind. One employer, whose East Indians had been soldiers in the British army, found them strong and industrious, but unadaptable and unprogressive, and hence capable only of doing the rougher kinds of work. As common laborers he found them less desirable than the Swedes and Norwegians, but more desirable than the class of Americans employed. Another employer found difficulty in giving the orders because of their limited knowledge of English. A third ranks them after Americans, Scandinavians, and Germans in