The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1868-02-15

StIInt. anu tcfHIfitInE IOur mIIt6 TTVIH NWE ~
beyond which the elevation becomes too great for
cane culture. In the State of California, during
the propitious season of 1866. not more tlan the
one hundred and sixtieth Part of Its area was cult
waited in grain of all kinds. We can therefore
the more readily consider the Advertiser 10 be
correct, when it officially assigns the one thirty
eighth part of the area of these volcanic islands,
as suitable for the more delicate culture of the
cane
Your committee. therefore, accept as the most
reliable estimate they can form, that of this pub
lie statistician, viz: That the cane lands of the
islands adapted to profitable sugar planting are
about 100 900 acres.
information from private sources places the
amount of land at present occupied by planters
at Is. 900 acres. Official documents show the ex-
port of the islands ut present 10 be 5000 tons
yearly. The ratio of export of sugar TO land is,
therefore. one bali ton 10 the acre. y member
of Your committee, who has been connected with
the islands for sixteen years, states this ratio of
production to he that Of one of the most success
ful plantations on the islands. Ii is not To be UNI
derstood that particular patches of cane only pro-
duce in any given year this amount, for the yield
runs up to two and two and n half tons to the
acre, but it means that a planter occupying for
sugar farming, with its necessary collaterals,
/ 200 acres of land, will, one year with another,
do reasonably we'll To make 500 tons of sugar
without exhausting his land.
If we suppose that the entire amount of land
suitable for sugar cultivation gets into culture
during this treaty we then only obtain $4,000
tons yearly for export. But the production of
sugar presupposes something more important
than an area of wild land. however suitable it
be. 1t eminently requires skill, capital and labor
in heavy amounts.
The sugar producers SkiH is not found in many
speculative business men; and the men who pos
sess it are not generally favorites with capitalists.
Distant sugar plantations are financial catacombs;
the skeletons of many scores of fine fortunes lie
buried in them. Tropical sugar plantations and
California gold mines range, in the judgment of
moneyed men. about on a par-equaliy near zero.
If this treaty becomes law it is rather to be
hoped than expected, that skilled men and capital
lists will mutually hunt each other up, and rush off
to take up these wild lands. In the first place about
three years must elapsc before the sugar of the
first new plantation can be converted into money.
This is a serious damper. The next and most Sc
rious is the probability that before the sugar
reaches here the war tariff of the United States
will be reduced TO n peace tariff, and at least $50
be knocked off the price of every ton they send to
market. No prodent capitalist in California or
VIII put his money into n Hawaiian
sugar plantation based on the probability of our
outngeously unjust sugar tariff being continued,
and though, at half our tariff, sugar planting in
the Islands would repay prudent management, TO
The erteni that Mis coast can take heir cTOps-yet
it would be impossible to supply any part of the
Eastern States; for the West Indies can undersell
them because of their proximity, by fully S25 per
ton, which is the freight, insurance and wastage on
this article during Il Cape Horn voyage, more than
the same charges from Cuba to. New York ON sim
liar sugar.
This treaty is, so far as the raw staples of the
Islands are concerned, practically one of exclusive
reciprocity triM the United States on the Pacific
none of these products, except fancy woods and
minor articles, will 90 to the Eastern seabOard.
Your committee, as practical business men, see
no particular reason to suppose that the cane
culture on these Islands will advance faster than
it has done in the most favored countries, where
it has been pushed. 1t took Louisiana thirty
years TO advance from 1900 tons in 1898 to ILL.,
900 tons in lS5S-at the same ratio, the Sand
witch Islands Will advance from 1000 tons i'm
1867 to only $4,000 tons in 1874. The Mauri-
titus (Which is regarded as the greatest marvel of
sugar production extant,) when it became a
British possession in 1910 produced 1000 tons
yearly. In 1859, or nearly half a century later,
Its product was 10000 tons. At this ratio of
increase, these Islands in 1874 will not export
over % 900 tons. To produce 10 900 tons of
sugar in 1859, the Mauritius employed l64 600
sugar laborers, imported 25 600 tons of guano.
and cultivated los 5000 acres of land. Hasty
progress in sugar cultivation, even in the chea pest
has uniformly proved hasty loss. OF
all sugar exporting countries, the culture on the
Islands is the dearest. They have had for the
past eleven years the best market and highest
prices in the world for their p~rUlucts. They
have received all this time thirty per cent more
for their sugar, than the Manila planter has for
Ills lHtN lily Dotctcl Vi lnclT COOilc L1DOr anu
of their unequaled soil So loudly that, for years
they frightened other sugar producers who supply
this market. Bat the result of their proceedings,
has been, that ninety per cent. of their planta-
tons have been mortgaged, and those who lent
the money, equally with the borrowers, have
either been ruined or sorely crippled. Facts are
worth a thousand speculations, and Judging by
their stubborn rule, your committee can find no
reason TO suppose that the Increase in the produc-
of the Islands will exceed the increase of the
lIauritius.
The conclusion your committee arrive at on
this topic is, that in the seventh year of this
treaty the export of sugar from the Islands may
each twenty-five thousand Tor even thirty thou
andy tons, which give an average of from seven
thousand to eighteen thousand tons yearly
or the period. In no case, however, even with
he most unexpected success. is it at all probable
hat the export of the Islands will overtake the
consumption of this coast, of which it now reaches
one third.
If the present war tariff is maintained, the
oss to the United States will be, at present, about
$500, 600 per annum, and ultimately 81, 900 900
but of course only half these amounts if, as is
the war tariff on sugar is reduced to an
quail per centage to that at present collected on
Office.
VILE this treaty will secure the object the
has in view, viz the acquisition of
he Islands. this loss is trifing. The Government
Lirectly pays a subsidy of $500, 600 a year to a
team line 10 China she gives 800, 900 900 to
he construction of the Pacific Railroad. and
hould it demur to half a million, or twice that
um, to secure those natural fortreSses which
ommand our coast? How much would it cost
guard n coast such as ours, and n commerce
uch as that of the Pacific with a foe entrenched
I the Islands, in comparison with the same
ervice when no hostile fleet has a harbor, depot,
T station on the Pacific? For every sailor and
marine afoat in these waters the disbursement,
IL told, for ships, guns, fuels, arsenals, and the
numerous requisites of the service, amounts to
- 900 per man per annum for one thousand men
=. 900 900 for ten thousand men, $50, 000, 900
early. The result of this treaty, in all human
reliability, will be to save to the United States,
n Inc.,,.iro n alnnn thron ri,nnS ~ rnnnL.