The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1874-12-26

II Is REPORTED that the Government has en-
tered into an arrangement with two Chinese mer-
camille firms Of this city, whereby the latter en-
gage TO procure in China and land here within a
certain time, two hundred free immigrants, pre-
sumably agricultural laborers. The Government
advances to the firms a certain stipulated sum,
(said to be S2j) for each healthy, abie-bodied
immigrant landed in Honolulu, which sum is to
be repaid to the Treasury on the immigrant en-
tering into a contract of service. The arrange
ment thus made is understood to have been care
fully considered, and the responsibility Of the
firms mentioned is a guarantee that the better
class Of immigrants will be selected. For it must
be remembered, Notwithstanding our sometime
unpleasant experience of Chinese coolies, that in
the great empire from which they come there are
good men as well as bad, and the most likely way
in which to obtain the former is through the i'm
mediate agency of their own countrymen living
here, who at once know our needs and how to
avoid our being imposed on.
One of our principal needs-if indeed it is not
the first need Of the country-is population, and
that sort of population that will produce and not
merely consume. Had we our choice, however,
we would much prefer re-peopling these Islands
from some other source than the idolatrous and
pagan Chinese. With all their admitted quail
ties Of industry and thrift and a civilization that
is peculiarly their own, they are thoroughly and
Obstinately Asiatic in everything, and never, as a
general rule, become Christianized or adopt the
ideas and customs Of the West. Their standard
Of morality is extremely low, and their influence
on the native Hawaiian is demoralizing. They
are essentially adventurers, always intending to
return home to China at some time, or whenever
they can make money enough from the ''outside
barbarians.'' Many, it is true, intermarry with
the native women and raise families, which they
are usually found to take good care of; in this
particular being more successful than the average
native. The children Of these marriages are
naturally a considerable improvement on the abo-
riginal stock, having more nervous force, of a
more active habit and with a larger brain, and
consequently susceptible of a higher education;
in this respect comparing fayorably with the off
spring Of the Caucasian produeed-under like cir
cumstances. The Hawaiian nation of the future
will possess no small infusion of Chinese blood.
While, as we have said before, we should much
prefer the assistance of some other race in the re-
peoplfng Of these Islands, yet it would seem APP
parent that only the Chinese are available to US;
or, what is perhaps nearer the truth, so well
suited to supply the immediate necessities of our
agricslturists. Undoubtedly the Chinese will
find it to their own advantage to come here under
the system now inaugurated, and the result will
probably be, that so long as the government may
deem it desirable to encourage this sort of immi-
grafton we shall have quite as much as is good for
US, or as we need. The problem for us will be to
properly manage and control this Increasing ele-
ment in our population-to bring them up to our
standard Of civilization, and not ourselves be
dragged down to the level of theirs. And per-
haps the time may come, before long, when the
American Board shall again send missionaries to
to the Hawaiian Islands-this time for the CON
version of . the Heather Cbinee.i'