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NUMBER, OCCUPATION, AND NATIONALITY OR RACE OF PAID EMPLOYEES ENGAGED IN SECONDARY AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES IN HAWAII, AND DAILY RATES OF WAGES, 1910-Concluded.

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On rice plantations the employers are usually Chinese, and employees are boarded. The custom of sharing the profits of the farm among the employees is nearly universal, and the rate of wages-or, more properly, the compensation-is determined by the amount of the crop and the price of rice when it is marketed.

MECHANICAL AND URBAN OCCUPATIONS.

In the present report three sources of statistical information have been resorted to regarding employees of this class, the census figures of occupations and of total wages paid in manufacturing establishments the latter of doubtful value in an intensive study of wage

conditions; a considerable body of wage statistics taken from the pay rolls of industrial and commercial employers and contractors for this report, and the statistics of family incomes and cost of living, gathered in connection with this report by agents employed by the Associated Charities and Palama Settlement, in Honolulu, who worked under the direction and in association with the agent having the census of Hawaii and the collection of statistics for the present report in charge.

Taking all data obtained as to wages, both on the special wage schedules of the Bureau of Labor and the schedules of the social survey of Honolulu, including plantation mechanics and employees in miscellaneous industrial establishments, the following comparisons of rates of pay per day by races and selected occupations are shown:

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES IN MISCELLANEOUS INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS WITH THEIR RATES OF DAILY WAGES, BY RACES AND SELECTED OCCUPATIONS, 1910.

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NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES IN MISCELLANEOUS INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS WITH THEIR RATES OF DAILY WAGES, BY RACES AND SELECTED OCCUPATIONS, 1910Concluded.

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The following table confirms in a supplementary way what was said on page 691 preceding, as to the effect on wages of the competition of orientals in the skilled employments. Average daily wages are shown for sugar plantation employees, unskilled and skilled, and also for urban employees, unskilled and skilled. It is seen that for the skilled workers, both on plantations and in city employments, wages have decreased; while in the unskilled employments, on plantation and in city alike, wages have increased. No combination in aggregate of the figures for the four classes is made because of the preponderating numbers of sugar plantation employees as compared with urban employees. The relative wages are percentages, using the average actual daily wages for 1902 as a base. A comparison of these relatives with relative prices of food for the corresponding years may well be made. The relative prices of food for the years 1902, 1905, and 1910

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are, respectively, 108.7, 107.2, and 121. These relatives are, however, based on an average of yearly prices for the 10-year period1890-1899. Assuming the relative for 1902 (108.7) to be 100, the relative prices of food for 1905 and 1910 become, respectively, 98.6 and 111.3. Limiting the comparison to the last five years it is found that the wages of sugar plantation field hands has increased 11.1 per cent and food prices 12.9 per cent.

AVERAGE DAILY WAGES OF SUGAR PLANTATION SKILLED AND UNSKILLED HANDS AND OF CITY SKILLED AND UNSKILLED HANDS COMPARED, 1902, 1905, AND 1910.

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1 Including only "laborers" in building trades, fertilizer factories, and industrial establishments. Including only bricklayers, carpenters, painters, plasterers, and plumbers in building trades.

INCOME AND COST OF LIVING OF WORK PEOPLE IN HONOLULU.

The following study is based upon schedules containing data as to income and expenditures obtained from 363 families of wage earners in Honolulu, distributed as to race as follows: Caucasion, 14 families; Chinese, 42 families; Hawaiian, 150 families; Japanese, 30 families; Portuguese, 127 families.

The investigation was suggested and made possible by the efforts of Mr. J. A. Rath, superintendent of Palama Settlement, in Honolulu, who secured an appropriation from the Associated Charities in that city sufficient to pay a corps of field agents and who cooperated in the preparation of the schedules and the supervision of the agents. The agents employed included 2 Japanese, 1 Chinese, 1 Portuguese, 1 Hawaiian, and 1 American; and, in addition, a few schedules were taken by other persons. All the agents worked under the supervision of the chief special agent in charge of the census of the Territory, and most of them had experience as census enumerators. Agents received detailed instructions for securing replies to each question; and being for the most part men of families, belonging to the race and nationality for which they were obtaining information, their work was checked by personal knowledge of the conditions they were reporting. In addition, price lists of commodities and information as to the method and amount of family purchases were obtained from retail storekeepers in different neighborhoods. Nearly all the schedules were reviewed as soon as submitted at the Honolulu census office,

and visits to families were repeated where information was apparently incorrect or insufficiently substantiated. The original filling of the schedule usually required more than one visit, and replies to such questions, as the weekly cost of food, were often based upon observations covering several days or weeks. The schedules were later carefully reviewed in the Bureau of Labor and the whole of the tabulation was prepared in the Bureau.

The value of the resulting data varies somewhat with the different questions. Information as to wages and family income is very nearly exact. The same is true of rents and housing conditions. The amount spent for light and fuel is truly reported within a very small margin, and these items are relatively of minor importance in a tropical country, especially in one where cooked food is so largely purchased. The annual expenditure for furniture and utensils is little more than an estimate. Most of the nationalities studiedthough not perhaps a majority of the families reported-live more simply than do families of American and European workmen, and during a typical year spend much less for household articles. Food expenditures and the distribution and relative weight of different items of this expenditure are approximately true averages. In reckoning the total dietary of Portuguese, and perhaps of Chinese and Hawaiians, not enough importance has been given, perhaps, to milk, eggs, and garden produce raised at home; but where omissions of this sort occur, they are probably compensated by the tendency to report purchases in round sums above rather than below the true consumption. Figures as to clothing are little more than a guess. For families not keeping regular accounts, where clothing is simpler than in the United States and more largely made in the family, where purchases amounting to 5 and 10 cents recur many times in store account, and where, among the poorer people, garments in turn serve several children of different ages, items become so confused that the agent is obliged to fall back upon an estimate based on consumption-upon how long things last or how frequently they are replaced and then arbitrarily to place a value upon each article. But the totals thus obtained-checked as they sometimes were by actual figures from family expense books-are near enough the truth to be useful, especially in averages; and, as showing comparative expenditure by races and nationalities, they have very real value; because the estimates for each race and nationality were made by persons having practical personal knowledge of the facts to be reported. The items of miscellaneous expenditure are not equally reliable, though the total of this group, without regard to the distribution of items inside the group, is within a working margin of accuracy. The item most understated is the expense for liquors drunk away from home, especially as reported by Caucasians and

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