The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-10-05
WHO WILL OCCUPY?

On the southern slopes of Haleakala
tnere is now to be seen. not an ex-
pertinent, but a demonstration of the
course OF racial events on these ISL
ands. vast tract of land lies on this
slope, rising with gentle grades from
Inc plains of the isthmus occupied by
the Hawaiian Commercial Company,
up to and above the frost line The
soil is rich. Fruits and vegetables
grow with luxuriance. Corn makes
excellent crops. With a good road,
Inc owner Of only ten acres of such
iiand may sleep every night within
ane cold belt, and descend every morn
ing to the warmer belt below This
region Is ideal for the most satisfactory
sroWtn or Anglo-Saxon civilization in
the tropics, because, if he wills it, the
settler may find only half an hours
ride between the tropics and the tenn
perate zones.
What is the situation? What is the
outlook there? The Portuguese have
settled on this tract and are doing we'll.
Many, it is said five hundred, Japanese
nave taken land in Kula and Maka-
wac, and are making excellent profits
out of their agricultural work Out
OF some hundreds of settlers are there
any Americans? No. Yet the profits of
agriculture in that section, today, would
open the eyes Of the small farmers of
America. 1t cannot be said, however,
that these profits are any larger than
they are under similar conditions in
many parts of the United States.
These Industrious Portuguese and Jap
anese farmers are as prosperous on the
whole, as the white mechanics in Ho-
nOfuln. They live we'll and send con-
siderable sums of money out of the
country
While there is much waving of the
Flag over the Islands with the patrio-
tic shout that the Islands must be
Americanized, day by day, step by
step, the men of other nationalities are
becoming the bone and the sinew of
the people. One looking upon these
prosperous people pre-occupying the
land, must regard the case of American
settlement in this region as almost
hopeless. The settlers now on the
ground understand the soil and the
methods of agriculture better than
strangers, and whenever any land IL
TO be obtained, they can and will bid
higher prices for it than the Ameri-
can settler who is astounded at the
enormous values of land in these ISL
ands, and is unable, from his own ex-
perience to determine it's value The
first occupants Of the soil will hold it.,
unless they are supplanted by men Of
superior thrift and capacity. It 10
simply idle to say that the American
farmer can or will supplant the Por-
ting iese or the Orientals.
In California the Latins and the
Chinese have already taken away from
the Americans the cultivation of mar
ket gardens. Over three hundred Chi
nese supply Los Angeles with vegeta-
bles, and not an American in sight.
Idle, and Starving Americans walk
the streets of that city, according to
the statements of California papers,
and refuse to compete with the Chinese
in market gardening, although the
Chinese laborer even lives as we'll, if
not better, than the American laborer,
and the Chinese employers become rich.
The idle Americans, according to the
Times-U Union, stand on the street cor
ners, wave the Flag, but refuse to ''un-
AmericaniZe" themselves. by raising
pigs and potatoes ard cabbages and
onions.
Whether another class of our coun-
trymen are willing to measure them
selves against the races who are pre-
occupying the soil of these Islands re-
mains to be seen. The Advertiser be-
lieyes that they can do so, but every
hours delay in providing for such Inn
migration is an additional handicap on
the success of such an enterprise.