The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1877-07-07

THOSE WHO are interested-and who is not p
in the labor question, will be glad to learn that an
agreement was made between this government
and the Agent of the P. NJ. Co. on the occa-
sion of that gentleman's recent visit to Honolulu
en- route for Au~srralia-relative to the importa-
ton of laborers from China and the Fills. The
steamers of the Company, as is generally known,
ply regularly between China and Japan, and
San Francisco. The Company's Attorney, on
his late visit, promised this government, in the
event of their deciding to import five hundred
or more Chinese into these Islands, to arrange
that one of the company's steamers should make
a detour on her trip from Asia to San Fran
cisco in order to land such Chinese laborers
at this port. This promise of the Company's
Attorney removes all difficulty out of the way
of the government, in the matter of the impor-
tation of labor from China, and it only
remains for the planters and employers of
labor here to put in their applications for hands
from China, so as to make up without loss of
time the number stipulated by the Company's
Attorney; after which the arrangement will
be carried out in due course of time. A similar
promise has been made by the Company's
Attorney to this government with reference
to labor from the Fits. Recently, the
Company's steamers have given up Kandavu
as a port of call however, in the event of this
government resolving to import time-expired
South Sea Islanders from Kandavu, the Com
pany's Attorney has undertaken that one of
their steamers shall call in at the Fijis, on her
voyage from Sydney to San Francisco, for the
purpose of bringing on to this port, any South
Sea Islanders for whom this government may
indent there. AS we remarked above with
reference to Chinese laborers, the planters
have only to bestir themselves, and make their
applications at once to the government for the
number of hands that they wish to import from
these time-expired South Sea Islanders at the
Fijis, when their wants will be supplied as soon
as possible.
The gentleman representing the P. NJ. Com
pany in this matter is entitled to the thanks of
the government and the country, and, more es-
pecially of the planters, for the obliging offer,
or couple of offers, which he has made to our
government, and, as the business now stands, it
seems to US that all subsequent action rests
with the planters themselves, who have only to
put down the number of hands which they re-
quIre, whether from the Ffjis or from China, and
make the necessary arrangements for repayiDg
the government for it's outlay on the arrival Of
the labOrers after which these laborers will be
imported in the way explained. After all the
outcry which has been raised on the score Of
want of labor, if our planters do not now at
once come forward and make the requisite ar
rangements for the passage-money of a lot of, say
500 Chinese, and another lot of as many South
Sea Islanders with their wives, if they can be
got, and children to boot,-we shall come to the
conclusion that they are both blind to their own
interests and devoid of patriotic feeling, remind
ing Us of the old fable of the Sc mountain in
labor, and no pun meant