The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 19, 1905, Page 4

r 2R VE LLVELS. 7> kis IKE the phenix arising from its ashes, the Isthmus of Pana- ma has awakened of late to new activity. A few years ago the visitor could hardly meet fifty beople crossing the.‘zone.” To-day workmen ere clearing the jungles, making roadways and repairing the old dwsllings for occupancy. Every Steamer arriving at Colon brings hun- dreds of negroes, mostly from Ja- meica and Fortune Island, situated in the Windward Passage. They leave their families at home, to send for them later as soon as each has a home prepared. Once such a family arrives it generally stays. They are rounded together in groups of fifty, the port physician examining them very close- ly. Afterward they are given in charge of the proper agent, who conducts the i THE POWER OF COVERIOR _[2AV7e5 ILEDTA (T7 JIZOWING Ofice” DS laborers to different places along the canal. The negroes are a good natured, happy, don't care sort of people, fully realizing the dangers, especially during the first few years, the work will bring. It is said that 135,000 laborers are buried up in Monkey Hill, the ceme- tery near Colon. During that fearful vear of 1888 42,000 men were buried there. Although the Government has made experiments with Chinese and coolie laborers, the Jamalcans, it was found, can bear the hardships of the climate better than any other laborer. They require very little to eat; tropical fruits grow in abundance. They plant their yam, a sort of reot, which when boiled tastes not unlike potatoes. A 1it- tle yam and a banana or two, some- times a little rice, constitute a laborer’'s meal. % CO-OPERATION IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND AND WALES IN ENGLISH POUNDS (84 87). Your. | Sakine | Membors. Toan - | Pron ear. | ™ t S ! Returs. | Capital Capttat. | g ’ * | About | - 17 wa ..l 30 8184 £833,200 [.coeenees wenns.| @LBIZUIT ser .| 108 171,887 1.475,199 £136,734 | 6,001,160 £308,578 1878 .| “es0 887,701 2,512,002 407,750 ! 15,662,453 1,119,028 wsm .. ue | sTa.08e 5,747,841 1,405,243 20,365,602 1,949,512 1885 . { 1288 i 808,747 i 8,799,758 1,827,108 29,882,679 2,883,761 1801 . ‘ 1508 { 1,126,526 12,064,608, | 8,054,262 48,915,965 4,518,417 1887 | 1780 | 1,520,860 18,725,900 8,160,700 61,637,194 6,428,006 1800 oy T | Lmme 28255887 | 10,062,283 77,820,015 8,069,350 1908 ..\ 1880 2116127 | 27,017,218 10,140,760 9,216,223 0,873,385 Bndrlton H. Pnrker give you a letter to Mr. Grey, the gen- <y eral secretary of the Co-operative HEN I landed in London Unlon,” I took the letter gladly and - early in November, amazed by the bewildering mass of the city, good fortune had given me an introduction to Sidney Webb. Besides having written the world’s two text books on trade unjon- ism, Mr. Webb is the authority in the London County Council on Educational work, and, in conjupction with his wife, Beatrice Webb, is writing a criti- cal history of municipal government in England, which promises to be epoch making. So, when Mr. Webb said to me: “Sooner or later, better sooner, you must go to Manchester and see the home of co-operation; you,-have no more right to ignore it than &n investi- gating American manufacturer to ig- nore gthe existence of English trade unions; it is too big to overlook; I will -left for Manchester. Manchester is a great, gloomy, fog grimed city of smoke stacks and stone wharves.- It, not London, is the heart of England. Taking Manchester as & center, within a thirty-mile radius 16 a = population of ten millions; London cannot say the same. Grouped within @ few miles round the city are suburbs of 100,000 and 150,000, each a powerful milling community, full of the soul of hard work, devoid of a leisured class, and making - England commercially great and to be feared as it has been for 200 years. In Oldham, with 175,000 people, I was told there do not live more than 250 who.-have not worked with their hands. 8o, when co-opera- tion selected Manchester for. head- quarters, it‘had gone to the place where no soclalistic theory is recefved THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY, CALL. 'o-.:f/{/, [ (]ffllflitb& Bl e e ST CO-0O with inattention, and where legislation affecting penny values is worth bitter fighting. Ride through the endless dis- mal factory streets in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and you know why men will starve in striking for better hours or against a reduction in wages. The two objects compose their entire hori- Zon. In 2 big brick building in the heart of Manchester I found the head office of the Co-operative Wiion, and got my letter to Mr. Grey. Mr. Webb's name is a recommendation anywhere in the English labor world, and within a few minutes I was in the presence of a square-faced man in a very brilliant vest, who ‘'was seated at a table swamped in documents. charts and printed stuff. In a minute I knew the union was most assuredly safe in 1its secretary. “I think,” he said, “you had better know what we are, and what we have done, first; then look around.” He reached for the report of 1804, and read: ‘“We number in Eng- land 2,116,127 co-operationists, belong- ing to 1671 socletles. To the Co-opera- tive Union belong 1638 of these socie- ties, and these iflgures relate to this latter number: The sales g‘tha unlgn. wholesale and retail socleties, in 1903, were about $445,000,000, with a profit to consumers of $46,600,000. The English wholesale house here in Manchester £old $100,000,000 worth of goods, with a froflt of '% ::."1:0.000 Notice the immense sa e consumer in the retail business. The production of the mills and factories belonging to mem- bers of the union-sold for about $40,- 000,000 last year. The produce from co-operative institutions in the ‘was about $80,000,000. The recen or- ganized bank of the Manchester Wholer il & ..é}:? e 7 sale Society handled $220,000,000. In all the population of England 4.7 per cent are members of the Co-operative Union. Leaving out of consideration our strength compared with the vol- ume of English business, you can casily see that as a unit of absolyte strength we are a powerful factor. Now go out and putter through our wholesale department and the offices here, and when you get full of ques- tions, come back to me."” 1 was furnished with a gulde and went into an immense block of brick buildings, dodging between the drays, * whose teams carried the big “C. W. 8.” of the soclety on their harness, "The three letters were to become very fa- miliar, ag they appear on everything about the plant. The wholesale de- partment, exclusive of its productive work employes, has some 4000 men and women employed. The establishment was in appearance llke a well ordered and immensé private concern. Respon- sible, well-paid men are in charge, lack of industry is an immediate cause for dismissal of a clerk, and a member of th? ’Dd;tly is no xzmtr:l i:tlmdlm & po- sition than any ou I is run on hard business rules. ognly three characteristics are the ces different from a pflvne».f‘ran. First, - - they keep in sem! 2 ‘Q-!m‘ thetic touch with the unions, thy jon” wi -standard, apd usually being & “cloged” shop. - Becond, they. by declarhtion, promise sani- comfort to all employes, even to Mrree hospital attendance, both emer- gency and convalescent, and, third, the wholesale department sells to no retailer except . ret co-pperative -operation, as stores. distinguish Scotch, Shts s paid 0 the' 1 t. It th fd v o ?‘M- i o Arriving at his quarters, the first thing a negro does is to dig for silver. As'there are no banks in the country ¥ears ago the laborers buried their sfl- ver around their quarters. So many died that considerable amounts have been found by thefr successors apd’the search for treasure has become second nature to the négro. = + .7 They are :-willing workers.. Fach camp has a commissary “depot, where Bupplies are to~-beé had; ..the larger camps have their own slaughter house, where fresh beef can-be obtalried. In case of sickness they are well taken care of, either at Ancon or at Colon; every afternoon the “funeral train,”” consisting of an engine, ca- beose and boxcar, passes over the line, to put the sick in the caboose, the Sead In the boxcar. All laborers are buried at Monkey Hill. A curioys grave en top of this cemetery can be seen from:the-rallways, that of “Bohio Dan,”’ who requested that hc be buried standing up, facing the railroad track, #0 a8 fo see the trains pass. His re- T Yquest was granted. Old, rusty machinery is being re- paired, tracks gre being relaid, the lo- comotive's whistle sounds through the Jungle. (All along the line of the canal from Colon to Panama there are magazines or storehouses fllled with machinery and rolling stock, such as dirt cars, lo- scmotives, railroad supplies, ete. One thousand machinists are at work re- pairing machines, building sidetracks near Culebra, which w1l greatly facili- tatc the work. The great steam shovels are excavating at a surprising rate to the onlooker. Culebra has a peculiar formation of earth and basalt rock, which is very hard. Diamond steam drills bore holes and expert miners dy- namite those portions which cannct be excavated by dredges or the strong steam arm of the shovel. The old Belgian engines are very use- ful here. The trains of cars are run on a track beside the steam shovels or dredges, and the dirt is dumped miles out in shallow-places. The old machin- ery strewn along the canal strip is valued in all at $18,937,309 43. Think of it! Near 320,000,000 wortn of scrapiron! A foundry at the isthmus could do a fine, remunerative business. There are five sections in the ‘‘zone” —Ancon, Empire, where the marine soldfers are stationed; Gorgona, Buena Vista and Cristobal. Throughout the section all laborers are paid in silver. They earn about'$1 50 silver a day, or 75 cents in American money. They are housed free, and almost every one has a family. All natlons are represented. There you see the Spanhish negro, the type mostly found; the Martinique dar- ky, with his sweet French accent, and clearsight, always ¢ndeavors to keep employment continual, and fights against the disastrous lapses in work so freguent among private firms. Co-operation has achieved In material advancement a growth exceeding even the enthusiastic dreams of the ‘“‘Roch- dale Ploneers,” and, before discussion of its economic qualities, a short table as given above is necessary in explaining the development. The figures are tak- en from the official renorts to the Co- operative Congress of 1904, and are en- tirely faithful. The consolidation of societies gives in some years (1897, 1903) a false impres- ‘sion of loss in numbers. Industrial co-operation is a slow fight of years, stable because time has sea- ned its structure. First be it known that English co-operation is in no way connected with Socialism, factory own- er;plp by the workers or-trade union- ism. 'Bach of these three has . its organization. The society is one purely of consumers, who, through their cen- tral organization, or by their own local society, have become factor, .owners and operators, curious in the fact that ey inake only for themselves. In 1860 the father of co-operation, the Pioneer Soclety, published the following principles, all :t which, with .one unfortunate exception, form 2. ‘pure provisions should be g AL . M prices should” be and no credit given nor asked. - Efl‘h‘%‘&fn‘.fl‘m o therr o, g g2 L e amoul o} o chases v by each membe 'ltu d be 3000 MEN FOR THE A LLACTTHTIT JZOP O WEHEELS B =3 NN PREPARING 15000 sooN TO BE AT WORK ON THE = CANAL. USING OLD ~ FRENCH WITH .SOME NEW ) the Jamaican humming “God Save the Queen.” I asked one of those Jamaican darkies why heé sajd “Queen,” as Ed- ward was King. The negro would not belleve me until others told him that his Queen was dead. He had been at the Istbmus for fifteen years and of course never read a paper. More than 70 per .cent of the workmen cannot write, public writers occupying a seat at court and doing a remunerative bus- iness. ‘The bands of laborers are in charge of white men, generally engineers. The men are very willing and polite. A blacksmith shop on wheels travels up and down the strip to sharpen and re- pair broken tools. Water boys ecarry witer for the laborers; the men work from six to nine, and then breakfast at ten; they work until eleven and from two to half-past five p. m. When canal werk Is at its height it will require about 15,000 men. At present there are 3500 laborers busy, not including 1000 mechanics, engineers and others: One thousand tons of powder and dynamite are required to finish Culebra cut. The idea of cutting the canal across the isthmus dates as far back as the sixteenth century. The first actual survey was made in 1581 by Antonio Peretra. In the year 1620 San Diego de Marcado submittcd an elaborate report to the King of Spain, but that monarch silenced further discussion, saying that the will'of God was made manifest by the fact that He had created an isth- mus instead of a strait and that it would be implety for a man to attempt to unite the waters of the two ocesns which God had separated. In all at least twenty-five projects of the kind have been advanced. In 1879 two French engineers, Wyse and Reclus, advanced the proposition of digging a sea level canal. A con- gress of engineers, scientists and capi- talists met at Paris and, after thor- oughly considering the question, adopt- ed plans. It was estimated that 2,520,- 000,000 cubic fget of eartn would have to be-maved and that it could be com- pleted by 1888 at a cost of $125,000,000. In 1879 M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built the Suez canal in 1368, became interested in the scheme, and in 1881, at the head of a company, he com- menced operatlons. The company-figured on constructing a sea level canal, and estimated that it would take eight years and cost $166,- 000,000. The company received $260,000,- 000; it expended $154,000,000 on the isth~ mus on excavating, machinery, making surveys, etc. The directors drew a sal- ary of $50,000 a year each and were al- Jowed $50 a day for expenses. At the company’s expense they built residences costing from $100,000 to $150,000. They also had Pullman cars that cost $42,000 each and palaces for offices In Paris, Panama and Colon. In 1891 the crash came; they failed, with less than two-fifths of the work done. In 1894 the receiver transferred the property to a new company, which obligated itself to complete the' canal and tc pay the old stockholders 60 per cent of the net receipts from the income derived from tolls until the old stock- holders, numbering more than 200,000, were fully paid. With that understanding all tae profits should be allotted to education. This constitutes the famous “Roch- dale system” of organization. The one important violation of this con- stitution by modern ' co-operationists is the breaking of provision 3, relating to the giving of credit. Organized in the delicate manner that it is, to be safeguarded by faithfulness among its rank and file rather than its officers, this “tick” buying strikes directly at its heart and, keenly realizing this, {emln leaders are mow arrayed in itter opposition to the rapid spread- ing of credit among the retail dealers. It is a noteworthy fact that the early agitators for liberal education in England were forced to find their en- cou mént among the lower classes. The “definite percentage” proposed by the poverty ‘stricken ‘“pioneers” ‘was faithfully: kept, being sometimes 3 per.cent, but usually 33 per cent, of the society’s profits. In 1903 $400,- 000. was spent for this purpose. The work includes children’s classes, teachers’ clasdies, university extension lé¢tures, scholarships, technical classes, réading-rooms, circulating and permanent librarfes, literary d de- bating societies, concerts many others. It is the greatest of the social benefits-of the movement. I had a splendid chanee to inspect certain co- operative extension courses, and the interest and attendance at the lectures would be’a healthy éxample to some ‘of the audiences in a fashionable ex- tenision ¢enter of Londén's syburbs. It was a wish o further this interest that gave purpose for a “woman's or- ganization,” and . now. the Woman's ‘0-operat! uild is element. of %lfi fi.::tnryn':tnmhv % and all co-operative mi ocia .\M-, A plain A PR : B o rights and assets, consisting of ths canal, Panama Railroad and expens machinery scattered along the wh length of the canal, together with 2 780,000f cash belonging to the cld cor pany, were transferred to the new cor pany, whose sole capital was $13,000 00 or less than the old company paid f nine-tenths of the stock of the Panan Rallroad. The new company has had small force at work since 1894, but has dllowed the canal from Bohio t the coasp (Atlantic side) to fill until i many places it is almost obliterated. On May 3, 1904, Lieutenant Brooke, U. S. A, furnished the chairman of the Isthmian Canal Company with a copy of the telegram from Messrs. Day and Russell, then in Paris, and also inform- ed the chairman, Admiral Walker, that Mr. Renaudin, the director general of the French new company, had reé¢eéived instructions from his company to make delivery of the property. The transfer was arranged May 1, 1904, at half-past seven a. m. The persons present at the transfer, besides Lieutenant Brooke and, Mr. Renaudin, were W. W. Russell, United States Charge d'Affaires; Joseph W. Lee, Secretary of Legation of: the United States; H. A. Gudger,. United States Consul General, and Dr. Claude C. Pierce ~* the Marine Hospital Serv- ice. Lieutenant Brooke's declaration was executed in French, English and Spanish, and authenticated by the cer- tifleate of Mr. Renaudin. ‘The United States Government paid $40,000,000 for the rights and title to the canal property, including the Panama Railroad, and $10,000,000 to the Panama Government for a perpetual lease of a strip of land seven miles wide from ocean to ccean. It is estimated it wiil take nine years to finish the canal at a cost of about $150,000,000. The capal will be forty-six miles long, including three and a half miles sea reach in the Pacific. The total esti- § mated cost of completing the Panama canal is as follows: Colon entrance and harbor $7.334.973 Harbor to Bohio locks, | IO o54a uagdessadssa . 10,718,288 Bohio locks, including excavation.. 10,902.345 Lake Bohio 2,786,449 Bolsbo gates . 265,435 Culsbru _section . 44,378,335 Pedro Miguel lock! cavation and dam 8,496,328 Pedro Miguel level. 1,160,611 locks, including excava- spillway. 8,720,363 R 12,366,914 o spiliway ... Chanmel between the m: Chagres diversion . A Gatuncillo diversion - 00 Panama Railroad diversion - 1,267,500 Engineering, pelice, sanitation. 23,723,763 Aggregats ... This estimate is for the completed project. A canal begun upon this plan may be opened to navigation earlier than expected. If single instead of double locks be used and the bottom width be 100 instead of 150 feet the cost will be reduced $26,401,364, and the estimate becomes $115,941,214. At Bohio will be located a double flight of locks, having a total lift vary- ing from 82 feet at the minimum level of the lake to 90 feet at the maximum, 45 feet to each lock, the normal lift being 85 feet. These locks are on the location adopt- ed by the French company. The esti- mated cost of this flight of double locks, four lock chambers in all, is $10,- 902,345. The Pedro Miguel locks will be simi- lar to the Bohio locks, the aggregate lift varying from 54 to 62 feet. There is an excellent rock foundation here. The estimated cost of these locks, including an adjacent dam, is $8,496,326. The Miraflores lock varies from 18 feet at high tide to 38 feet at mean low tide. There Is a good foundatien for this lock. A spillway will be required to regulate the height of this level The estimated cost of this lock is $5,- 720,363. Lake Bohio will be an artificial lake, covering 31 square miles. Its Wwaters will be from 55 to 65 feet deep. The dam will be built of earth and ma- sonry, and will cost $9,788,449. Alhajuela Lake will cover 5900 acres, and will be 165 feet deep. The dam will be constructed of masonry, and will take five years to complete, at a cost of $3,500,000. It will furnish motive power for operating the locks and lighting the canal at night from oc to ocean, In- cluding the cities of Colon and Panama. statement of the principle of co-opera- tion would be: “To eliminate the agencies between himself and the prime cost of the essential elements of de- gent human conditions—pure food, com- fortable clothing, pensions, etc. This seems to allow the criticism, but the second principle, “To accomplish this fundamental object by honesty and fair dealing,” vindicates at once the association. There are few factort and few stores in Northern England that have not felt the salutary influence of the competition of the roomy, we ventilated and well-warmed mills ar stores of the society. The hours of labor, the honorable treatment of employes by foremen, h made the work places of the s much sought after, and the ex: has helped where legisiation has beem powerless. There are 97,321 employ:s of societies in the union, who received fn 1903 $17,700,000. The criticism of “profit hunting’” might be, and is. & T among the associations of “workmen i The tendency there might be to cut their own wages and scale down necessary expenses in order to better fight the outside com- petition. The unions have to watch these organizatipns closely, lest they establish a wage scale below the stand- ard of life, but in the co-operative con- sumers’ assoclations, which are bound first by the unioms, and second in their OWn natural capacity as working men, not only is this tendency absent but a sympathetic treatment of alk factory reform is the rule. While the vigilance of the co-operatives’ upper officials is not uncertain, the direct incentive to strict supervision is, of course; absent, and, to replace it, the societies have en- deavored to build up an esprit de corps, a voluntary personal Integrity, By open tréeatment. And the success of this on-Tg! deavbr is '.x best indication of the