pearl-washers,
watchmen, cooks, laborers, etc. In the Ceylon pearl fishery of 1906,
for instance, our estimate shows 18,500 fishermen; but there were
40,000 persons engaged at the pearl camp alone, and many others were
given employment in boat-building, supplying provisions, selling the
pearls, etc., and this does not include the wives and children
depending on the industry for sustenance. Indeed, it seems not
unreasonable to estimate that instead of only the 18,500 fishermen,
85,000 persons were in a large measure dependent for their livelihood
on the Ceylon fishery in 1906.
Estimated
on the same basis, we have a total of 500,000 persons depending
largely on the pearl fisheries of the world for their support. Thus we
see that pearl buyers and pearl wearers not only gratify a commendable
admiration for the beautiful, but contribute largely to the economic
balance whereby one class of humanity either sustains or is dependent
upon another, even though these classes be so widely separated as the
crown of Russia from the half-starved diver of the tropical seas. How
strange is the providence of God, who, by granting the pearl to the
poor Arab, the Tamil of India, the South Sea Islander, and the
forgotten Selang of Mergui, makes the greatest and wealthiest in the
world contribute to their support.
