The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-01-08

manufactures. Since then commerce has beel
drawn to New York and Boston, and if she ha,
depended on commerce alone she would not b
to-day as large or us rich as she was more thai
eighty wears ago. But she had a diversity o
labor. She stood first in manufactures eight,
years ago., aud since then, Notwithstanding sh,
has become fourth in commerce, she stands to-da,
first in manufactures, first In science, first IL
extent of city, and second in population
Suppose the sugar planting and the whaling
feet should both fail these Islands, a thing no
impossible or very improbable and where, | ask
with no skilled labor and no manufactures, would
these Islands be? But give the people a diversity
of employment let them be able to make almost
all they require, and a good deal to sell, in the
way of woolens and cottOns, leather, ard shoes
and boots, and the nation could live and prosper
without what We now very justly consider to be
the mainstay of pr~Osperity-whaling and sugar.
There are some things which we are not pre-
pared to make here at present, which. with a
little encoura cement from the Government, could
be made a source of wealth and industry to the
nation.
We send our wool out of the country to get it
manufactured, and pay a double freight on it to
get it back again after it has been worked into
blankets by foreign labor. We sell our wool.
for, say, an average of 90 cents per pound, and
buy it back again in blankets and cloth at from
80 cents to g per pound. We could save about
$4,000 a year to this country by starting a
wooden mill here at a first cost of about S25 900.
1t would raise the price Of wool here, and at the
same time give us good articles of homemade
woolens as cheap as We buy them now, and set
us very lar on the road to prosperity as a nation.
Let the people. woOl-growers and all, call upon
our Government to help us in this matter. We
do not ask for protection on woolens until we
shall be prepared to make them, but we can ask
help to start a wooden mill, and ask protection
afterwards, if necessary.
We could also make all our own paper. There
70 CYNt I0IAnt 6 NO kan - l. l.
make all the paper used here, and any amount to
export. Our mountains and valleys grow in
great abundance an excellent material for making
very superior paper; and in this branch Of
industry we could employ many women and
children in out o! the way country places, who
have now no remunerative employment. The
capital required for a paper mill is not large, say
about $50, 900 for a first-class establishment.
In fostering such employment we should find
the long-sOught buG not yet attained, and very
desirable object, an increase in our native popu-
lation.
Wherever on the Islands you find families
employed in such a way as to keep them at home
at steady work, there you will find large families
of children. l have in my mind several families
of from six to thirteen children each, that L have
been personally acquainted with, and in every
case the parents have been remarkable for being
always at home, and always employed. And
where can a family be found with any children,
or any riches, who are constantly on the move,
and never at work?
Another source of wealth, and one that would
give employment to hundreds of persons now
idle, is in the castor-bean. Thousands of acres
Of our dry clInker lands, fit for nothing, or for
very little else, produce the castor-bean in most
growth. The process Of pressing out
the oil and preparing it for market is very simple,
and only requires an outlay of a few hundred
dollars. For about five hundred dollars the
press, with a furnace and all the
for working, can be procured and set
up ready for work. A few such presses set up
at different points about the Islands, would open
road to many poor families to prosperity, and
not only supply all our home wants for the oil,
but enable us to make large amounts for export.
Unless the Hawaiian race are protected in their
and encouraged to nurture and raise
their children, it takes no prophet to toretell their
early doom.
We have schools and churches, what we need
is an indictment to work. We want various
remunerative industries encouraged, and the only
way to do it is through the fostering care of the
There are no laborers who will do more solid
hard work for the same pay than the Hawaiian
abOrer, only let them be sure of the dollar, and
ct them have a chance 10 come out at the end of
he labor, better off than they began.
Let us, who belong in the country, and whose
interests are here, all join in keeping the wealth
If the nation at home, and add to it year after
by our home industries.
We unite in asking our King, our Noblefa and
'ur Legislature to protect us in our home manu-
actures.