The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1898-01-20
OCEAN WAY STATION.
QUESTION OF FUTURE @poMl-
NATION ON THE PACIFIC.
Coffee and Wheat Supplies Ana
iiAeo = Greater Population Means
ureater Consumption Sugar Trust
AntagOnistic to Hawaii.
(San Francisco Letter \

(San Francisco Letter.)
sugar and coffee are, and ever viii
be, the leading products of the Ha.
Wallan Islands. The consumption o.
sugar IN the United States is Is pound:
per capita of our population, which il
equal to 2,275,00O short tons for pop.
ulatlon of 100000 of people. The
hawaiian Islands have never yet pro.
euceo 215,OO0 tons, and never will pro-
duce more, if ever as much as that
rms leaves 100000 tons to be SUP.
plled for us from other sources. and
about 100000 tons are now imported
rom 70 abroad. 1t will be many, many
years before the American cane and
oeet sugar interests can produce such
an enormous quantity, even if they
are ever able to do so, their total an.
nual production now being less than
4oo'Ooo tons. What reason, therefore
is there to fear that the American
market can be taken away from the
american sugar producers by the hand
ful OF sugar that is grown on the Ha-
Wallan Islands, where there is no more
lano available for growing sugar?
Ihose who are creating an anti-annex-
atloh sugar scare are allies of the Su-
gar trust, which now feels some effect
OF the Hawaiian sugar competition in
New York, where there are independ-
ent refineries that have not vet sold
themselves to the greatest trade mon
opoly that the world has ever wit
messed.
Ihere is no more danger that the
Hawaiian sugar product will ever in
crease over 100000 ton output, or
that it will ever affect the American
grown sugar interests already great
er than those of Hawaii-than there is
that Santa Claus will ever be deceased
at Christmas time. In thirty, forty or
fifty years. time we might grow all our
own sugar, but the probabilities are
that, even with the greatest encour-
agement, we shall always be depend
ent upon some other countries for a
portion of our supply. If we produce
all the sugar we need by growing :,u-
gar beets, we shall have to import
wheat within half century. In mak-
ing these estimates no allowance has
been made for the increase of our por-
ulatlon during the next fifty years.
With ten million more people we shall
need $4,000 tons more sugar than We
how consume, and the whole of Io,1is-
lana will never produce as much as
THIS, and it is in Louisiana that the
Instrumentation fever spreads through
tlmldlty, because the facts have not
been studied. We have to- buy now
from abroad, and we shall always have
to do so, or else buy wheat. Why not
then, buy our sugar from Americans
who are growing it in Hawaii rather
than from Germany, France, Java, or
elsewhere? The Hawaiians are. 5y
far, the best customers, in proportion
to their population, that the United
States possesses. They buy two dol
lars worth of our products where Fill
ropeans buy but one dollars worth
from us. 1t is American money that
has developed Hawaii There we find
our own kinsmen who are toiling in
the tropics in order to secure return
from their investment. Why desert
Americans simply because they live in
Hawaii, and give to Europeans or
South Sea islanders the balance Of
our sugar market that the United
States can itself never supply, and
which our growing population will al
ways prevent us from supplying.
Outside of the sugar lands of Ha-
wall, there are the mountain lands.
where sugar can not be grown. These
are being developed by Americans and
by American money into coffee planta-
tons, the labor and cultivation occu-
plying nearly five years before any re-
turn is received from the investment,
Apart from these two agricultural in
dustries, the Hawaiian lands grow
bananas, pineapples, oranges, guavas,
and mangoes, though there is good op-
portunity for farm truck, small fruits
and dairying in the higher mountain
regions, which are always cool. In
the United States we consume about
ten pounds of coffee per capita annu-
ally, or 7O0,O00,0o0 pounds a year at
the present time. Much of this can
be grown in, Hawaii, and if we buy
both the coffee and sugar that are
grown by our brother Americans, they
Will buy even more literally of our
manufactures and farm products. 1t
will be far better for us to trade with
our own people, even though they live