Various business men have suggested the need for a paper box factory; and it does not seem unlikely that such an establishment will soon be added to the industries giving employment to unskilled labor. A silk mill is rumored, but nothing definite can be learned concerning the reality of the rumor.
There is no doubt of the healthy prosperity and progressive spirit of the city; but those interested in the development of Honolulu in its broader sense will find it necessary to consider the questions of public health involved in long working hours for women and girls, and in the labor of children; questions of public intelligence and citizenship bound up with the establishment of night schools and public recreation centers—of public morals as related to more opportunity, better wages, and better training to be wives and mothers, rather than subjection by unemployment, less than a living wage, and neglect to the temptations held forth by soldier, tourist and citizen.
CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS
It is only five years ago since the Pittsburgh Survey commenced the investigation which was the first exhaustive attempt to interpret an industrial community to employers of labor, as well as to the community at large; and since the publication of Miss Butler’s Women and the Trades in 1909—the first of the six volumes of the Survey to appear—more than one city has made inquiry into the conditions under which the women and girls of the community were earning their livelihood. Notable among these inquirers have been those made by the Women’s City Club of Chicago, under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation; by the Kansas City Board of Public Welfare, which began in February, 1911, and is still in process; and by the Russell Sage Foundation for Birmingham, Ala., the latter being a reportorial survey rather than the intensive investigation made in Pittsburgh.
Five years before any of these surveys were undertaken, however, a committee composed of sociologists, economists, philanthropists and educators not only made a special investigation of the workrooms of New York City, but reached conclusions which concretely express at any rate the salient points brought out by every survey which has since been made: (1) that wages of unskilled labor were declining and in most cases insufficient to maintain the worker according to the minimum community standard of living; (2) that while there were in many directions good opportunities for skilled labor, the supply was inadequate; (3) that the condition of the young, inexpert working girls must be ameliorated by the opening of training classes for those who have reached the age to obtain working papers; and later experience has shown, (4) that a vocational bureau established in connection with the public schools tends to help girls make the most of their equipment and guides them away from the occupations which do not offer the right sort of opportunity.
The survey in Honolulu confirms the conclusions reached in other communities only partially. Here the wages of unskilled labor are advancing, although they are still insufficient to maintain the worker according to the minimum community standard of living, for the reason that the only occupation in which any number of unskilled girls and women are at present employed, i. e. the canneries, affords them employment during only four months of the year. The second finding, that while there are in many directions good opportunity for skilled labor the supply is inadequate, is true here only partially. There are only two occupations, that of seamstress and that of stenographer which offer opportunity to any number, and in each there is every indication that at least fifty more experienced workers could be used without crowding the present workers. The third finding, that the condition of young, inexpert working girls must be ameliorated by the opening of training classes for those who have reached the age to obtain working papers, applies unqualifiedly in Honolulu; but their condition must be ameliorated in a number of other ways as well. Honolulu is faced, in fact, with the unique problem of evolving new enterprises to take care of its women and girl workers, in addition to creating the machinery for dealing with those now in existence according to the most progressive methods in operation elsewhere.
Fortunately the survey has uncovered community needs unfilled, as well as suggested avenues of employment which there is every reason to believe could be made profitable with intelligent management; and with this in mind, together with the possibilities of creating other preventive and educational social machinery, the following suggestions are made:
MUSLIN UNDERWEAR FACTORY.
A factory for the manufacture of muslin underwear, sheets, pillow cases, mosquito nets, starting with not more than ten employes.
A canvass of the five leading dry-goods shops showed that there is undoubtedly a market for a sufficient amount of underwear alone to keep a factory busy at least six months in the year. This is especially true since the pake shops making these articles are finding it difficult to obtain help, the Chinese boys preferring to go into the mercantile shops and factories. A number of small Japanese shops for the manufacture of shirts and shirt waists are finding their work profitable; but the manufacture of underwear requires organizing and concentrating.