States. Here, where the struggle for life is the fiercest on earth, it is not surprising to find the Chinese the hardest working race, for they can over work and under live any other nation. There is something sublime in the endless onward march of this conservative, majestic, plodding people. The other ancient empires-Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Macedonian, Persian and Roman-have long since passed away; the mushroom growths of the middle ages have withered; modern governments rise and fall in the kaleidoscopic changes of the post-war map of Europe, but China goes on forever.

After a tour of three months through a score of the principal cities, through the chief provinces from Manchuria in the North to Canton in the South, and from the coast to Hunan in Mid-China, we left the country with a deepened love and admiration for the Chinese people and unshaken confidence in their future, yet with a sense of sadness at the impending disaster which seems to threaten the central government, and for the terrible conditions in the sweated labor of the masses.

An examination of wages, hours and conditions in China reveals the most appalling situation found in the whole world of labor. The twelve-hour day prevails in nearly all of the modern factories. The work day in the primitive Chinese industries ranges from twelve to sixteen, and in some cases even eighteen hours, seven days a week. In many silk filatures and cotton mills children from six to twelve years of age are working. The wages of these children vary from three to twelve cents a day.1 Several hundred thousand apprentices receive nothing but their food which costs about six cents a day. Usually no compensation whatever is given for accident, permanent injury 1 Figures in this chapter are given in gold dollars and cents.

or death. We found much of the dangerous machinery in Chinese mills unguarded and accidents are consequently numerous. The ancient family system is breaking down under the strain of modern industry, where whole families are in the factories working on the day and night shifts.

In order to study the industrial situation we met individual employers, Chinese and foreign, Employers' Associations, Chambers of Commerce, representatives of the Cotton Mill Owners' Association and others. We found some of these men earnestly desirous of improving present conditions. The fact that some have already introduced reforms proves that the situation is not hopeless, as some assert, but that conditions can be changed here just as they have been in other lands. The industrial situation in China today was paralelled in the worst days of the industrial revolution in England a century and more ago.

Chinese employers are for the most part humane and amenable to reason. Conditions have not become as impersonal as in the west. Capital and labor are not yet separated by an impassable gulf. There is yet time to save the situation in China from drifting into a state of settled warfare between employers and labor.

As typical of the best, we found in one factory under foreign management sanitary conditions, light, air, ventilation, baths and welfare work of which any factory in America or England might be proud. The majority of the workers had an eight-hour day and one day's rest in seven. Wages were unusually high, ranging from a minimum of nearly $5.00 to over $50.00 a month. The manager took a just pride in his factory and a deep interest in the workers. In every city we found certain progressive openminded employers who were well aware that present conditions are not right and are deeply anxious to change

them. It is very difficult, however, for one employer to act alone when some of his competitors care for nothing but their profits.

We visited one Chinese Christian employer in Shanghai who has reduced the working time from fourteen to ten hours a day. He told us that he is now producing more in ten hours than he formely did in fourteen. He gives one day's rest in seven and pays relatively high wages ranging from $8.00 to $16.00 a month. He has classes for his boys, training groups for his foremen, welfare work for his employees, a co-operative store and a savings bank for the workers. And yet he earns an honest twelve per cent profit. We visited the Commercial Press of Shanghai with three thousand employees. They employ no child labor, they have a minimum age limit of sixteen years, a nine-hour day, one day's rest in seven, a free school for five hundred boys and girls and an "Industrial Association" for the workers. Their wage scale runs from $3.50 a month to over $25.00. The firm has a plan of profit sharing, a savings bank, pension system, dispensary and hospital. Mothers are given a month's leave of absence before and after childbirth with special bonuses. One or two such examples prove that changes can be made in the present system.

Unfortunately conditions for the vast majority of the workers fall far below these standards. According to the Government Bureau of Economic Information, in cotton mills wages for men run from a minimum of 5 cents to a maximum of 67 cents gold with an average of 162 cents; the wages for women from 5 to 40 cents with an average of 13 cents a day. In steel, copper and iron works, wages for men run from 6 to 42 cents, with an average of 152 cents, and for women from 5 to 15 cents a day. The average for the basic industries of China is only 182

cents, and wages for unskilled laborers seldom exceed 1212 cents a day.1

Over 70 per cent of all the laborers of China are working seven days a week. Professor J. B. Taylor of Peking and Miss W. T. Zung of Shanghai state that, "The maximum daily wages for men in twenty-nine of the chief industries embracing 300,000 workers range from 2012 to 512 cents with an average of 37 cents a day gold, while the minimum average is 42 cents a day. For 221,000 women, the maximum is 22 to 422 cents, averaging 18 cents and the minimum is from 1 to 1712 cents with an average of 434 cents.2

The minimum living wage for a man without dependents in the port cities has been calculated as 121⁄2 cents, and for a man with an average family 281⁄2 cents a day. “In Shanghai a careful study of the cost of living gives $5.93 a month as a living wage for a single man and $10.67 as an adequate minimum family income." If these figures are correct some 40 per cent are living below the poverty line.

Side by side with the most modern machinery in China are conditions of work corresponding to those in England more than a hundred years ago. In the factories a twelvehour shift both day and night is the rule. Where there are not two shifts the work day runs from ten to as high as eighteen hours in the primitive industries. In certain coal mines in the North they work a shift of twenty-four hours underground with twelve hours free above.

1 Government Bureau of Economic Information, Peking. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, a farm laborer averages 12 cents a day with board and lodging. The Report of the Industrial Survey showed that in Shanghai, where wages are the highest in China, skilled workers earn from $6.00 to $18.00 a month gold, averaging $10.00; foremen receive from $10.00 to $12.50; unskilled workers average $4.50; women $4.00, and children only $3.00 a month. 2 International Labor Review, July, 1923, p. 8.

• Ibid., p. 9.

Miss Agatha Harrison, formerly of the London School of Economics and now the industrial expert of the Y. W. C. A. in China, has done a notable work in the effort to improve these conditions. She states in most of the factories there is practically no fencing of dangerous machinery or sanitary equipment of any kind. Women and children, because they will accept lower wages, are rapidly being drawn into the factories. In some of the factories visited, women were working with babies bound on their backs, and in one case a woman had her baby strapped in front in order to feed it while at the same time working with both hands and a foot. Brought up in the factory atmosphere, children learn to do odd jobs at a very early age and when six, seven and eight years old are regularly employed. Commenting upon the great amount of dust in one factory the manager was asked if any records were kept of sickness. His answer was, "No, there are constantly new faces. They either go to the next mill for more money or to Kingdom Come." No wonder Dr. Speer said of the present industrial system: "If there are too many lives in China, the present factory system will bring a murderous relief." Professor Ross felt that the present system was grinding the life out of millions of toilers.1

We visited certain typical factories in North, Central and South China to ascertain present conditions of labor. We first visited a match factory under Chinese management in the North. It is said to be the best of its kind in the city and the owner desires concerted action to improve

1 "Haunted by the fear of starving, men spend themselves recklessly for the sake of a wage. In many occupations men are literally killing themselves by their exertions. The treadmill coolies who propel the sternwheelers on the West River admittedly shorten their lives. Nearly all the lumber used in China is hand-sawed, and the sawyers are exhausted early. Physicians agree that carrying coolies rarely live beyond forty-five or fifty years. The term of a chair-bearer is eight years, of a ricksha runner four years; for the rest of his life he is an invalid. The city coolie sleeps on a plank in an airless kennel on a filthy lane with a block for a pillow.