The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1892-03-19
Letter from a Farmer.

Mr.. EDITOR: [ see by the
steamers that there are great
many Portuguese leaving these
Islands. 1t seems very strange to
me that the Government does not
offer some inducement to these
people in the way of homesteads,
ten or twenty acre lots. | am sure
there are plenty of school lands
and some sixty thousand acres
of Crown land on this island alone,
in the hands of one or two men for
the sake of keeping few wild cat
tie. 1t appears to me the Govern
ment pays more heed to men with
plenty of roaming cattle than to
please the masses. Someone may
think those lands can not be made
productive, but that is all nonsense.
The writer knows by experience
what can be done in the way of
farming. 1 raised the finest kind
of wheat and hay some three years
ago and sold it too without trou-
bic. Look at the hay that is i'm
ported here every year from Cali
fornia.
That is enough to set the Gov
eminent thinking. So, for these
reasons the Government ought to
do something mighty quick and
keep these Portuguese people here,
as it is well known fact that
every person that leaves these
shores makes the country poorer.
Of course the Islands are not as
good as they have been, by any
means; but for all that they are
far better than California for a
laboring man, as there is regular
stagnation in California and Aus
tralia and in fact all over the
world. So it behooves not only the
Government but every sugar
planter and business man to go
ahead and try and do all the good
they can, as sooner or later these
Islands are bound to spruce up as
we have got the climate and the
country, Notwithstanding McKin-
ley's obnoxious bill, and that bill
will be dead as a door nail shortly,
as nothing can beat cane sugar
after all, for it is superior to beet
sugar that is only kept up in
Europe and America by bounties
and as soon as the bounty is stop
ped, then our Islands will make
leaps and bounds and she will
live any way,-sugar or no sugar.
Sir, some few people seem to
think the Portuguese are no good.
Who made Punchbowl inhabitable,
but the Portuguese? l am sure the
Japanese will not do as much as
the Portuguese have done to help
build up the town. So it is the
duty of the Government to try and
offer some inducement for them to
stay, as they ought to and keep
those people here to develop the
country. | am sure half of these
people will be back again; so 1
advise the Government to do some
thing for them, and offer them
cheap homesteads. The sugar
planters can do something for the
workmen too, if they would let
every workmen have quarter of an
acre or so of land and some kind
Of decent house. 1t would be
some inducement for them to stay,
as they could grow something, and
keep hogs or fowls or COWS.
California is no place for the
Portuguese, as in general they as
a class cannot speak English, and
they fare very badly without it.
I know that there are great many
in California who did not work
one month in six this last winter,
because they couldn't get it. 1t is
a wonder to me that the Portu-
guese papers do not forewarn their
countrymen not to go to California.
Some people may say where is the