Saturday press. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885, 1885-07-18

Cling debt ridden minority Of poor
whites another minority Of ,immotaI
females and large majority Of Asiatic
males, without homes and without
possibility for homes
Bu,some planters and thegoyernment
seem united on the proposition that
immigration to these islands shall be
immigration of unmarried males
cheap labor. And they seem not to
realize that they can have such labor
only at the price Of vice, of disease, Of
national unhappiness.
Thus saith the "Grand Total" of
the Hawaiian Census Of 1884 males,
sb559; females, 10000; males over IS
years, 30,S3s; females over IS years,
f8,22o. Since that table was compiled
there have come into the kingdom at
heaf 1000 males over IS and nat m0te
Than 400 females over IS, in excess of
those who have left. These approxi-
mate figures are sufficiently exact not
to be misleading sufficiently close not
to inyalidate the argument. II the
adult population of these islands (the
population over I5) is as follows
males, $4,000, females, 10000, the
disparity between the sexes IS one that
cannot possibly exist without gross i'm
morality And--paradoxical though it
is this immortality must inevitably be
more gross if the proportion Of married
be greater than il it be less. That only
is a safe social condition in which the
sexes are so nearly in numerical balance
that the disproportion is unapparent.
If the Miltonic story of Adams fall
is the true one, Adam has endowed
most Of his children with the ocrmas-
tering passion that banishcd him from
Eden. In communities where most
men may marry if they will, where
they are earning wages that enable
them to marry early and live deccntly,
there is society most hopeful. Where
most men may not marry if they will,
where their wages are too low to admit
Of the comfortable and reasonable and
rearing Of families, there is
society most hopeless. Is it not fast
becoming less hopeful in Hawaii
We realize the doubts, the disappoint-
mcnts, the discouragements, the vexa-
tions, the trials of those who have tried
to build up the sugar industry Of these
islands. We rejoice in every evidence of
their prosperity. But when, by good
management and by the employment of
improved machinery, plantations can
pay three PER cent month on the in
vestment they represent, it is high time,
such plantations contributed towards
something higher than the material
prosperity of the kingdom.
1t seems to be inevitable that the
Of Hawaii shall be polyglot
1t need not be the worse for US that
this is so. II we can make this a land
of happy homes by the wise enactment
of few and simple yet sufficient laws,
by their strict enforcement and
by the maintenance of at orce highly
moral and highly intelligent public
sentiment, then shall we have lived up
to the measure of our trust. We care
not if among those happy homes there
be many or even majority that are
=" Asiatic" But we do care that they
shall be homes.
Let planters and agents and stock
holders and dependents read this in as
earnest spirit as that which impelled
its writing. Cassandra warns the world
to-day through many an humble, many
an unworthy mouthpiece. The writer
has no false conception Of the problem.
He knows as definitely as any planter
knows that Homes for Portuguese,
Cooperative Planting, Diversiiying our
Industries, The Defense of Native Ha-
waiian Rights, and the almost innumcr
able kindred questions which spring
out Of hinge upon the Labor Problem,
cannot be settled on paper. But he
believes--and he thinks most OF his
readers believc-that we can never
even approach solution Of our labor
difficulties until we forego "immigration
for labor only and abolish the contract
system.
The political discussion now going
on in the Bulletin, editorially and by
correspondence, is healthfu sign.
Naturally Mr.. Spreckels Advertiser
does not like it. Cabinet making, even
on paper, disturbs the stomach of the