ALIEN LABOR LAW

Yes, Alien Labor Law, not 2009 style, rather that of 1899.

Considerable comment has been caused by a flagrant violation of the alien law by DW Sprague, the Winnipeg, Manitoba lumber man, who has purchased the drive of four million feet of logs from the Crookston Lumber Company.

The logs were sorted in the booms here and turned out to Mr. Sprague, who, it is said, has brought a force of 15 river drivers from Winnipeg to run the logs to that city.

This amounts to an importation of foreign labor and is clearly a violation of the law which the Canadian government has been very careful to enforce against Americans. The matter has been called to the attention of the customs officers at St. Vincent and Pembina and action is likely to be taken to prevent the proposed infraction of the law.

The contractors in the Crow's Nest Railway in British Columbia took a large number of men from the states into the work last year, and the Canadian government raised such a row about it that the men were sent back at the considerable loss to themselves. The river drivers here in Crookston to be the inter-national boundary, but it is said that on application they were informed that a crew had been brought from Winnipeg who would take the drive the entire distance.

The Alien Law was put into place in 1885 with later revisions. The idea was to keep the work in Canada for the Canadians. It was first used only in the western Providences. Another part of the law was the duty which had to be paid for bringing building products into Canada.

Guess the USA didn't have these kinds of rules in place, did we?

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