FINANCING. Orientals are financed principally as follows: (1) Cash advances by American distributors, commission merchants, packers and canners of fruit and vegetables, fish canneries and beet sugar factories. (2) Cash advances and other assistance by their more prosperous countrymen, either here or in the Orient. (3) Bank loans from both American and Oriental banks. (4) Letter of Westfall-Lane Company reproduced here as a fair statement of the usual financing methods. (5) Sample copy of usual form of crop contract used with Orientals. (6) Percentage of principal crops raised by Japanese in 1917. FINANCING. The principal source of financial assistance to Orientals engaged in agricultural pursuits and the fishing industry is the American distributor. American individuals, firms and corporations engaged in the business of buying and selling or distributing fruits and vegetables such as cantaloupes, grapes, lettuce, onions and potatoes; packers and canners of fruits and vegetables; fish merchants and fish canneries; and beet sugar factories all appear to follow the practice of making generous money advances under contract in sufficiently large sums frequently to cover lease payments on land and the costs of planting, harvesting, packing and crating. In the fish industry the canneries usually furnish the fishing boat, fishing tackle and equipment, the total cost of which often runs as high as $4,000 or $5,000, the canner reimbursing himself out of each catch brought in by the fishermen. Some of the larger canneries are said to have more than $200,000 so invested in boats let out principally to Japanese. In this manner it is stated that Orientals, especially Japanese, are often able to secure practically every dollar of working capital and being thus well financed frequently outbid whites by paying for leases of agricultural lands almost any price demanded, the average running about $50, while some cantaloupe lands in the Imperial and Turlock districts secure as high as $75 per acre per annum rental. Explains Methods of Financing. On page 81 is given a copy of a letter from Westfall-Lane Company of Turlock, California, large distributors of cantaloupes, watermelons, sweet potatoes and grapes, which letter is dated March 11, 1920, and outlines in detail the methods followed by Japanese in financing themselves through distributors. (This is but one of many similar statements.) Sample Crop Contract. Following above letter is a sample copy of the usual contract between the distributor and the grower, the printed form herewith given being one that Arthur Miller, 330 Washington street, New York City, uses principally in the Imperial Valley cantaloupe territory near Brawley, California, this, however, being a form commonly used by all classes of distributors. Farm advisers and others complain that American farmers, lessees, and intended growers are not as liberally financed by the interests above mentioned as are the Orientals, especially the Japanese. Difficulty in securing funds for working capital is eliminating the Americans from competition with the Orientals. |