The San Francisco call., 1898-12-13
LABOR TROUBLES
 IN THE ISLANDS Move to AnnuI HaWaii'S Contract System. PETITION SENT TO CONGRESS WHITE MEN TAKE UP THE CRU- SADIE AGAINST ASIATICS. It Is Claimed That There Are Plenty of Laborers in the United States
 to Do All the Work on the
 Sugar Plantations.
PETITION SENT TO CONGRESS
WHITE MEN TAKE UP THE CRU
 SADIE AGAINST ASIATICS.
BY HORACE WRIGHT.
Special Dispatch to The Call.


 HONOLULU, Dec. At is futile for the sugar planters and their local or gans to endeavor to suppress the fact from reaching the mainland, for it is undoubt sdly true, that the tocsin of la Dor Is beginning to send forth its warn ing tones in Hawaii. There may never be such an outbreak here against coolie labor as California suffered from in the days when the cry of "The Chi nese Must Co., echoed through the land, but the indications for agita- tion, and of a very practical if not forceful character, are very numerous.
 It has been surmised for some time past that the American labor element was secretly at work organizing and within the last few days they have announced their intention to present a petition to Congress, which is being numerously signed by the genuine working classes of all grades. While among the leaders are old residents and practical politicians from the old American League, one of the formerly dominant political factions. the most active of the agitators are men of com paratively recent arrival, who believed this country to be a second Fl Dorado, but have been disappointed in their hopes.
 AS The Call Is here recognized as the most earnest and warmeSt support CT of the American workingman'S cause I have been furnished with copy of the petition, which reads:
 To the United States Senate and House of Representatives, in Congress assem- bled
 Whereas, There are approximately 50,000 Ar-to in islands, and whereas this great disparity in the races has been brought about through the law permitting the importa- tion of contract laborers; and whereas Americans can do, without impairment of their health, all work on Hawaiian sugar plantations; and whereas approXlmately 5000 contract laborers have been landed in these islands since the American flag was raised over them on August l2 last; and whereas the Government of these islands has permitted the importation of 1000 more contract laborerS toNbe landed before the end of the first quarter of 1899; and whereas every imported alien laborer prevents tne immigration to these islands of an American laborer and his family; and whereas the contract labor system, enforced by criminal procedure and inn prisonment at hard labor, is. closely akin in principle and often i'll the brutality with which it is enforced by the planta- tion owners to human slavery; therefore, we, the undersigned American citizens, permanently residing or temporarily so- J hereby petition your honorable body to:
 I-Extend to these islands at the earliest possible moment the United States immi- grafton laws.
 II-Disallow and annul the contracts and arrangements of the present Hawaiian Government for the importation of the before mentioned 1000 contract laborers, provided this can be done without violat- ing the constitution or treaties of the United States.
 III-Abolish criminal procedure and fsrr r1aJr br1aaT fN formance of labor contracts.
 Some of the leading projectors of the movement in defending themselves from the attacks of the planters or ganS claim that the laborerS on sugar plantations should be placed on the same scale, as far as wages and living accommodations, as are the laborers on the sugar beet fields in the United States; and further they claim, from personal knowledge and correspond ence, that in the Eastern and Middle States there is sufficient supply of competent agricultural labor to sup plant the coolie element, willing to work at wages almost as low as those paid to the second term day laborers, coolies and Portuguese, say from SIS to $21 a month, but they would proba- bly also require a food allowance. They also maintain that if the planters are | permitted, by way of temporary con- cession or compromise, to procure "as- sisted" labor they should be compelled to honestly endeavor to obtain it from the United States before seeking for it l in Poland, Austria, Italy, Scandinavia or Portugal.
 1 The fact is that the spirit of unrest Is abroad and heated desire to thor 1 oughly Americanize the islands lest we forget, under the present peculiar con- ditions, that the Stars and Stripes float over us for some better reason than as a sentimental symbol of protection for l the planters oligarchy and their system of quasi feudal serfdom.
 Owing to the cruel competition Of the Asiatics in ordinary mechanical and industrial labor hundreds of good, stalwart and honest citizen making men have called in here during the past six months and left in disgust and dead broke" to give us a very un- pleasant ''black eye" The Chinese will evidently be attended to very string ently by Commissioner J. K. Brown, who decidedly means business.
 Following the strike of the Galician contract laborers came, like thunder cloud, on the 2d inst. strike of 25O 1 Hawaiian laborers of the Honolulu Iron Works. They had two grievances. The one was opposition to a new regu- lation preventing them from obtaining
 money from the establishment except on the fortnightly payday, which new regulation they asked might be rescind- ed as the Chinese would not otherwise give them credit for their staple food poi" Their second was that they did not receive the same pay as white men of the same grade of labor. They wish ed their wages raised from $8 to SIP a | week. After consultation with the 1 management they consented to work until the end of the year on the same conditions until a definite arrangement 1 could be arrived at.
 President Dole has about arranged to leave for Washington, with Mrs. Dole, by the steamer leaving here on January 20