The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-02-23

operative industry that management
should be so centralized.
Eva and Honomu furnish perhaps
the most valuable data on Profit Shar-
ing in the larger sense. ToMr. Kinney
of the latter estate must be credited
the most valuable pioneer work done
on the plantations on these Islands,
so far as i know, in demonstrating the
superiority of other methods OF pay
ment than that of wages; methods
which are better bases of authority
than the penal labor contract and
which demonstrate comparatively the
general economic unsoundness of that
contract. l cannot but believe that if
the Mckinley bill had been in opera
tion during the year 1895, the conse-
quent adversely would have forced the
close study and therefore more gem
eral adoption of the method used by
Mr. Kinney.
Waiakea and Onomea furnish a GER
tain amount of similar data but of less
value at it represents that which has
been merely incidental and subordi-
nate to the mainwork on the planta-
ton, while at Honomu the method
employed has been the dominant prin-
ciple upon which the management has
depended.
In some respects the experience at
Eva Plantation may be of still greater
value inasmuch as four years practi-
cal trial of the working of their con-
tract has failed to develop the specu-
altive mania that has prevailed to some
extent at Honomu. This contract may
be called a species of Product Sharing,
say of the raw material,-in the case
of Honomu it is partly manufactured
material,-and has developed as fol-
lows: The first contracts were based
upon as careful a calculation OF the
proportion contributed by unskilled
labor to the cost of production as exa-
mination of the figures furnished by
several plantations similarly condi-
toned enabled. 1t was determined to
grant approximately the same share OF
product in lieu of wages as this proper
tion should prove to be. At the same
time it was recognized as preferable
for the sake of simplicity and ease of
settlement to translate such share into
its equivalent in weight of cane. In
experience in diffusion made this diff
cult and the first contract remained in
proportion of sugar value. Since that
time as experience enabled the deter
on the weight of cane
The financial results of the contracts
have proved mutually satisfactory to
employee and employer in a high de-
gree and the interest infused into the
work is all that advocates of new me-
thodS can desire. 1t is recognized that
this method is not as accurate in its
results, and to that extent is not as
fair to both parties as the share value
of the finished product, but has been
preferred for the reasons named. Re
turn will doubtless be made to the 9TH
er contracts with the advent of a class
of labor reading and writing the Eng
lish language.
The experience of Honomu and Eva.
and in lesser degree of Onomea and
Waiakea has practically demonstrated
the superf1uity, if not the waste, of the
penal contract. A wider contrast can
hardly be presented today in our sug-
ar fields than than that between "com-
pany'' man on Eva plantation, willing
and interested in his work, Embossed by
luna, and a contract hand, just re-
turned from court, fined for "haalele
hama" and with a swearing luna over
him. That there is more of hard fact
than fancy in the picture, / believe
the average plantation manager will
admit who has familiarized himself
with both conditions. | believe that
the fair and open-minded who will as
certain all the facts relative to the
question on both of these estates will
admit the demonstration of the prac-
ticability of the principal to be abso-
lutely convincing and complete.
The experience of several years has
resulted in three-quarters of the work
being done on Honomea (producing a
4 ,000-ton crop and two-thirds of the
work for 1886 on Eva "a 12,000-ton
estate) upon the principles here set
forth. Such an object lesson certainly
throws upon the planters claiming the
necessity of penal contract labor, the