Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1854-07-01
Report on Labor and Population.
By Prince LIHoLIHO.
nr. President and Gentlemen, Members of III
Roy al Haicaiian Horticultural Society:


.hr President and Gentlemen, Members of the
Royal Hatcaiian agricultural Society:
Ny fellow members of the Committee on labor
and the population of the Islands have devolved
upon me the task of collating their views on the
important matter referred to them for considerations
that is to say in far they have expressed any.
In justice To myself | must observe that, except
ing those contained in the communications of two
OF my cO-laborers, the suggestions offered me by
the members of your Committee have been almost
as scarce the labor of which they ought to have
treated.
1t seems to be generally allowed that through
out these Islands labor is hard to procure, and that
good days wages is by no means sure to COM
mand good days work. We are not here, now
ever, IN the position OF many netcLy settled coun-
tries where labor is scarce because laborers are
fev, and where every available arm is fully exer-
cIsed from Monday morning till Saturday night.
1t Is on the fact of laboring power being allowed
| 10 lie dormant; OF good muscle becoming faccid
from lnacuon, that must chiefly depend for an
answer to the Often Iapested q q'estion-why IS la
loE so llaTu 70 procure? The fiawaIIans are not
naturally ond Of libor-the natives OF hot coun-
tries seldom They read IN their Bible that
labor imposed as a curse upon fallen Adam,
and like other people, where the Scriptures COIN
eide with their prejudces they believe IN them de-
voutly. Then, again, 1t Is only yesterday that
forced labor was abolished, and the people are still
taking breath, it were, for to be coerced to do
thing is to hate it. Then again, there are those
Kuleanas, too, that have turned our peasantry into
petty chiefs, and while supplying them with more
than enough to satisfy their present needs, have
generally tended to enlarge the circle Of their
wants. 1t sounds paradoxlca bat all our poorer peo
pie rich and the spur ofnecessity being removed
they are, unluckiy, insensibIe to that other spur
which creates desire to reach some higher plat
form in society would provide.
The several epidemics that have visited Us since
l645, have undoubtedly had a melancholy lnfu-
ence upon the market for labor by decreasing the
population, for out of every hundred that have
died, there always some that were willing to
work. Whilst on this subject, cannot but make
confession of feeling that all has not been done
to preserve the lives of the people, and
quence to maintain the requisite quantUm of labor
that ought to have been done and that could have
been done. Because natives, or some natives
could, for time, have opposed the idea of going
into an hospital when sick, no hospital was created
until the small pOx appeared amongst us. The
necessity for those houses of woe having been re-
moved, we again stand before the world as peo-
pie without hospitals, but by means without dis
ease. One would have thought that such preju-
dice as shall allude to the part of the lower
orders of Hawaiians, should have been extra
reason for the speedy erection of hospitals because
they were not institutions the full benefit of which
medical aid. First of all, that prejudice had to
be overcome. believe that many laboring man
long since laid beneath the sod, might have been
alive and at work this very day, had the nstitu
tions | allude to been called into existence even
ten wears ago or FIVE. God knows whether there
may not have been impression somewhere, that
persons suffering from disease contracted in folly
we're unfit to become the recipients of aid from the
public purse or private one. Be that it may,
many a strong man to labor has been rendered
weak, and in the census table many child who
should have been recorded in the births has been
left unrecorded there, and many children OF the
first and it may be of the second and third genera
tons are now being visited with the sins of their
fathers, because we Mr.. President and Gentlemen,
unlike the good Samaritan, bave neglected our
duty towards our neighbory
There was time when it was thought that la
borers from the North of Europe might be intro-
duced here, and | do not doubt but that have
amongst US many land-holders who would gladly
supply every man of that class that might arrive,
with ground enough Tor himself and family to cul-
tivate, with other facilities for comfort and conven-
ience and the chance Of laboring for good fair
wages whenever he had mind to do So Not
few ship loads of such families might do well here,
but we have not got the capitalists to bring them
out. If the money was not wanting, what wonders
we could do, as was said long since-give me
fucrum and will move the earth. To make the
made TO introduce such laborers in not very small
numbers. In place where labor Is always look
ing up, as people say, Iaborers being in demand,
are apt to rate themselves rather highly, and IN
their estimate of what is due to themselves, they
include elements undreamed of where they came
from. Having come out as workmen their ambI
ton is to live without work-by keeping stores
perhaps The cobbler will not stick to his last.
Competition alone will remedy this. limited Just
now at the inconvenience arising from the fact OF
the natives being content with their condition
the Inconvenience alluded to springs from people
being on-eontent with their condition. This lat
ter, however, IS the true feeling when properly ex-
hbited.
! remember there was some correspondence
once passed between one of our official men end
H. B. M s Consul General, about providing home
here for the overplus population of Pitcairns Is,
land. No doubt such parties would make good
and valuable nucleus of thrifty agrculturaiists'