The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-03-21

neapolis by man who, j understand,
is not and never was planter.
The same may be said of Nebraska,
the report covering territory of less
than forty miles around Omaha; while
q table from Gankton, prepared by
stock man, tells all about the labor
systems of the two Dakotas.
These are the things we have TO con-
tend with. The United States have
no plantation labor system; the States
have none; farming communities none
to speak of. In considering the ques-
tion l would first remind you that the.
farm laborer is the poorest paid wage
Garner in the United States. The sim
gle silver assayer, over his smoking
cupels, at the little mills hidden away
in the rock-ribbed wales OF the noun
tains, receives more for his two hours
work upon few samples of white
metal, than does the ploughman of the
Mississippi valley for a weeks steady
toll, laboring from SUNRISE to night.
The miner, worker in wool, 'fence-
rider" and even cowboy" is paid
more than he who turns the sod and
harvests the grain. Indeed, white
man who follows this as business
(and many thousands do, earns less
money in a year than the contract
laborers of the Hawaiian Islands.
To substantiate my proposition 1
will throw all plantations in Minnie
sofa, Iowa, Missouri, West Texas
Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas and
Colorado into one, and from 1t draw
one wheat farm carrying ten regular
laborers at what is termed twenty-five
dollars per month with board (Which
is above an average). Presuming the
crop to be Spring wheat, three men
start to work (average) first of March.
Carrying the crop through, harvest
ing, breaking and sowing again In the
Autumn, will close the years work
(average) about the 18th of September.
Each man has had his board, slept In
the barn, and is in possession of what
is left of Sl62.50. The ground frozen,
work is over for the Winter, two of
the ten men are selected to do the
chores about the barn-yard during the
Winter months, for which they re-
ceive board only, and the others are
discharged. The men retained have
a chance of getting through with q
small saving; but the others have not.
With the latter, tens, hundreds and
thousands Of men were discharged
from the plantations in every county
in that whole territory, and there is
no work to be had. The Winter is
coming on. They break in swarms for
Topeka, Kansas City, st. Louis, Chi
CdSOy GoL. dut du0 DchNeI.
Here some find employment, but
the greater number do not and lie
around cheap boarding-houses and sa-
looms until the opening Of spring
again, when they return to the fields,
without money, and after an almost
unbearably hard existence OF four or
five months. Thus, evening up, the
Chinaman of the Hawaiian Islands
has had the advantage by long odds.
He has worked nearly the whole time,
but he has had the most delightful cli-
mate of earth for his labors; he has
not experienced the bitter coldness of
thermometer 5 degrees 10 SO degrees
below zero; he has not shivered in the
rain and sleet and suffered for the need
of comfortable clothing; and, last, by
application to his work he has saved
his money. And when the former
was at his hardest task the heat was
far more oppressive than the China
man had experienced here at any time
during the year.
The climatic ranges are as follows: