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Sia As HIM was called.
!'20. CluJimaa".-What is your Dame ?-SICIl As HIM.
521. You are NO.1 Ship's Painter, Singapore Harbour Board ?-Yes.
522. How old are you ?-Si.
523. Are you China-born ?-Yea.
524. Cantonese 1-Yes.
525. How old were you when you first came here 1-13 years old.
526. Have you since been back to China, and if so, how many limes ?­
Yes, 6 times.
527. How many men are empioyed under you 1-The numbers vary
from ISO up to 600 odd.
528. The average, I am told, would be 450 1-Yes.
529. Are you an opium smoker yourself ?-No.
530. Have you never smoked 1-No.
531. Are any of your men opium smokers ?-Yes.
532. Many?-About one-third.
533 Are your coolies all Cantonese ?-No, Hokkiens, Foochows and
Cantonese.
534 Which is the tribe which is most represented 1-Mostly Cantonese.
535. In the trade of a painter, you do not mind whether a man is an
opium smoker or not?-That is so; if they do my work all right, opium.
smoking is their own affair.
536. Do the opium smokers do your work well or not ?-The nonsmokers
are better workmen.
537. I am not talking about opium "sots"; I am talking about the
man who just takes a few pipes a day; is he worse than the non-smoker 1-Yes.
538. As an employer of labour, what, do you say, is the matter with
lhe opium smoker? Is he lazy, or what?-Yes, he is lazy.
539 If he is more lazy, he cannot earn so much wages?-That is so;
"pium smokers work at most 4 days out of 6 in a week.
540. But surely opium smoking is costly, and they require to work
in order to earn the money to buy opium ?-Yes, but there is a difference
between the non-smoker and the smoker; the latter are more lazy.
541. Supposing you are painting in the rain, which first stops work,
the opium smoker or the non-smoker?-The whole lot stop work at once.
542. Supposing you only wanted to employ one man and there were
two applicants, one a smoker and the other a non-smoker; which would
you engage ?-I would engage the non-smoker.
543. But then, you canRot tell every opium smoker at sight who cornea
along and asks you for a job ?-I select non-smokers for the workmen whom
I engage for my shop. Those whom I pay daily, for job work, I engage
indiscriminately.
544. But these that you engage for the more permanent employment;
how do you know when you engage them whether or not they arc! opium
smokers? By sight, or how?-I can tell by the appearance of the face.
545. You have a mixed gang; do you notice that there are more opium
smokers amongst the Hokkiens in your gang than amongst the Cantonese,
or otherwise ?-There is more amongst Hokkiens.