and silver to put on the table. We have to dust, polish, and
arrange 'em after we've done our housework. I don't suppose that means
anything to you, but--try it for a month! We have no help. A Chinaman
costs fifty or sixty dollars a month now. Our husbands can't always
afford that. How old would you take me for? I'm not thirty. Well thank
God, I stopped my sister coming out West. Oh yes, it's a fine
country--for men.'

'Can't you import servants from England?'

'I can't pay a girl's passage in order to have her married in three
months. Besides, she wouldn't work. They won't when they see Chinamen
working.'

'Do you object to the Japanese, too?'

'Of course not. No one does. It's only politics. The wives of the men
who earn six and seven dollars a day--skilled labour they call it--have
Chinese and Jap servants. _We_ can't afford it. _We_ have to think of
saving for the future, but those other people live up to every cent they
earn. They know _they're_ all right. They're Labour. They'll be looked
after, whatever happens. You can see how the State looks after me.'

A little later I had occasion to go through a great and beautiful city
between six and seven of a crisp morning. Milk and fish, vegetables,
etc., were being delivered to the silent houses by Chinese and Japanese.
Not a single white man was visible on that chilly job.

Later still a man came to see me, without too publicly giving his name.
He was in a small way of business, and told me (others had said much the
same thing) that if I gave him away his business would suffer. He talked
for half an hour on end.

'Am I to understand, then,' I said, 'that what you call Labour
absolutely dominates this part of the world?'

He nodded.

'That it is difficult to get skilled labour into here?'

'Difficult? My God, if I want to get an extra hand for my business--I
pay Union wages, of course--I have to arrange to get him here secretly.
I have to go out and meet him, accidental-like, down the line, and if
the Unions find out that he is coming, they, like as not, order him back
East, or turn him down across the Border.'

'Even if he has his Union ticket? Why?'

'They'll tell him that labour conditions are not good here. He knows
what that means. He'll turn back quick enough. I'm in a small way of
business, and I can't afford to take any chances fighting the Unions.'

'What would happen if you did?'

'D'you know what's happening across the Border? Men get blown