The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-10-05
ImmIgratIon.

HNo one will deny that with our fast decreasing
Population, the only method of repeopling our do
mains is through immigration. l have endeavored
to show by a former paper, the intimate relation that
heneeforward must exist between our commercial
prosperity and the numbers of our people and
more than this, the absolute necessity of reinforce
ment to assure even our national existence. At
present we are recognized among the nations through
diplomatic intercourse and treaty relations, but
twenty years hence with our population numbering
twenty-five thousand souls, all told. our commerce
decayed, our home industries bankrupt, the most
~sanguine locker on the bright side could hardly
claim for us an independent political or commercial
Importance sufficient to command even q flag salute
from national cruisers.
immigration is the method by which some Of the
greatest nations have gained their strength. The
most sagacious rulers of history have recognized its
importance and have devoted themselves to measures
for its end and accomplishment The natural tide Of
immigration caused by excess of population or de-
maud for labor, may be greatly stimulated and in
creased by special. inducements offered to immigrants.
The United States hold out the tempting prizes of
citizenship and fee simple homesteads, and her gain
in population through these means has never been
paraleled. Prussia in the days of the religious per-
secutions in France, invited the Huguenots to new
homes in the Fatherland provided with great ex-
pense, and granted them extraordinary privileges,
and won thereby through those three hundred thou
sand brave adopted subjects and their descendants an
acquisition of physical and moral powers at the ex-
pense of her rival, which has done much to place her
in her present high position. g
Human immigration has always been q promi-
nent cause in the building up of nations, the rein
forcement of effete and declining races, and the de-
velopment of new countries. In ancient times it
generally took the form OF conquest in which undis-
ciplined, and barbaric but vigorous tribes urged on
by uncomfortable impulse overrun and eventually oc-
cupied territories inhabited by more civilized and
luxurious, as well as less hardy and virtueus people,
bene6tting the conquered with the introduction of
their healthy blood. and being themselves improved
in turn by the comparative civilization Of their
adopted homes. The conquest of Palestine by the
- IL H.
Rome by the Cloths and Huns and the invasious of
England by the Saxons, Danes and Normans. illus
trate perfectly the workings of this principle. In
modern times with greater facilities of national inter-
torial limits better defined, a higher civilization and
q development Of q more enlightened international
sentiment, these migratons have step by step become
more peaceable and industrial in their character.
Originating in consequence Of overplus in popula-
ton or political or religious persecution, they follow
the demand for labor or are led by the desire of
asylums safe from the attacks Of bigotry; and then
special inducements offered by those sovereignties
that are anxious to gain the benefits which they
bring in their train, influence and stimulate them
according to circumstances, some times doubtless, even
directing or turning aside the tide of immigration.
AL the foregoing discussion may be severely phi
losophic and impractical; but possibly to examine
the nature of the subject, its causes and effects,
before discussing the practical details, the what ?
before the howH and the whence! will not be throw
ing away our time. Therefore having studied the
az what?' let US take up next the " how ?"
In presuming to write upon SO difficult a question,
L ask the kind indulgence Of the reader, and can
only urge as an excuse, a sincere interest in the
subject and a belief in its supreme Importance to
our country.
Our great want cannot be satisfied by importing a
few hundred laboring men. 1t would be well enough
to provide for the immediate plantation demand in
this way; but it is hardly necessary to argue that
this kind of immigration is not the kind for the
repeopling of our islands. 1t is expensive, artificial,
or rather in a measure against nature, it is not
49, -na 1oNnaA4 % a-. anIz. - 1n1 - g.
exceedingly doubtful if any effort for the importation
of contract laborers in the old tGy could be made
successful, such are the limitations and p~rejudices
that have grown up in late years against such enter
prises, together with the strong competition Of larger
and richer labor markets
The circumstances are not unfavorable, however,
for the development of a steady tide of immigration
into our dominions, based upon sounder principles,
which shall increase as time passes on China and
Japan are overcrowded, and immense numbers Of
their inhabitants are ready and anxious to ~emigrate
in the quest of wages and food. Polynesia and
Malaysia with their great populations of q near kin
to the Hawaiiaus offer possible resources from which
to draw for our future demands; these races however
are less enterprising and industrious than the
Chinese and Japanese. and in consequence thereof
and perhaps for other reasons are naturally less
migratory.
As Inducements, we have fret, wages; second,
homesteads; and third, citizenship. Wages are put
first, not because they are the most important, but
because as an inducement they act first upon the
class of people with whom we have to do as immi-
grants. In like manner the attainment of home
steads would be priced far more at first than the
privileges of citizenship. Whether citizenship under
our present political development would be an in
ducement to any one, may be doubted; it is certainly
much more than the political status of the people Of
those countries whence We hope to reinforce our
own people.
1t will be seen, according to these views, allowing
them to be correct, that whatever is done in procur-
ing labor in the old ,cdy under the contract system,
for the immediate demands Of our plantations. the
problem of population is only to be worked out
through far more comprehensive efforts, which shall
aim to bring us settlers and citizens rather than
~convicts and coolies; that our mountains and our
plains must first be planted with men, before they
can be probably and fully planted with cane and
rice; that families rather than plantations constitute
the true basis of state prosperity and therefore the
first object of our needs. s. b. DOLE.