The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-10-16
CHINESE LABOR AND THE PLANTERS
COMPANY.

During the meeting of the Plauters'
Labor and Supply Company, Mr..
Theo. III. Davies complained that that
organization had been misrepresented
by certain articles in the ADvER-
TIsER regarding Chinese labor. We
question were perfectly fair to the
organization of which he is a mem
Der. They simply reviewed the cor
respondence between the p. L. & s..
Company and the Governmentont the
subject of labor, and the statements
of Its members at the annual meeting
in 1884. We did not desire to open the
question again, and we should not
have referred to it at all if Mr.. Davies
had not taken occasion to charge the
Government with acting "ungener-
0usly'' towards the association in re-
gard to Chinese immigration in his
remarks at the late meeting of that
body. Indeed, he went the length of
intimating that the articles in ques-
ton were written by member of
the Government. AS a matter of
fact they were neither written nor
'sinspired" by anyone in or connected
with the Government. 1t is this
loose habit of assumption-the taking
his own imaginings for facts-that
weakens the fC-ce of what Mr. Davies
either writes or says upon this sub
ject, as we took occasion to demon
strate last Wednesday in our article
on the report of the Committee on
Legislation, and as we hereby show
to-day.
Technically, perhaps, Mr.. Davies is
correct in saying that the p. l.. & S.
Company only asked for unrestricted
Chinese immigration in the event of
the Government not guaranteeing a
supply of Japanese labor sufficient for
the demands of the planters for 1885.
That was the phraseology used in the
draft of letter made by Mr.. Davies,
as Chairman of Specia! Committee,
dated October %, 1884, and sent to the
President of the Board of Immigra-
ton, but it was not the language OF
policy Of the company, as shown by
its formal reports adopted at the
same meeting. Mr. Davies may have
used this phraseology from motives oil
policy, aud doubtless he did; but the
organization itself spoke with nc
uncertain voice. In the report of the
Committee on Labor we find the fol-
lowing:
It is absolutely necessary to the successful
prosecution of our industry that the price o.
imported labor should be reduced. 4 y
Many De titions have been made to the Gov
eminent to open the doors to free Chinese
imnigra ton until the supply shall equal
the demand, upon fair terms. As yet the
Government has not made favorable answer
to those petitions. 1t seems to your Com
nnittee that that would be a remedy. Can
it be made available There is question III
rome quarters whether unrestricted license
for the influx of Chinese would give such
offense on the Pacific Coast and elsewhere
in the United States as would ALLEVIATE many
friends of the Treaty and endanger it's con-
finuance. On the other hand the belief is
general among planters and business men
that action taken by US to secure labor
which we need so much, and which seems so
difficult to obtain elsewhere. would not be
regarded as inimical to the interests of the
United States or to its sentiment, but q
measure of self-protection fully justified by
our great and immediate necessity for cheap
labor. There is also in our own community
= strong feeling that the coming of SO many
Chinese without women is productive Of
immortality 1t gould be practicable to re-
move this objection without hazarding the
s1ccess of the measure by making some liked
proportion of females prerequisite to any
body of laboring men. Your Committee
feels justified in the recommendation of this
remedy, being confident that it will not en-
danger either the Reciprocity Treaty with
the United States or the morality of the
ueople of this Kingdom, while it seems to
offer means of supplying the labor market
30 we'll that we may be able to choose, and
not bes compelled, as now, to employ the
idle and the vicious. When there are men
enough, so that good men win be glad to
perform fair days work for fair days