The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-07-22
PROFIT SHARING
Continued from Page L.

.Excellently." was the reply. There
has never been any trouble under our
system The reported trouble some
time since was with an outside party
and the plantation had nothing To do
with it. We consider il better 10 con
tract direct with the laborer than
through a third party. | forgot TO men
ton before that we also build houses
for those who make agreements with
us. if they wish il. on the same terms
that other advances are made. We
consider our system effects a great saw
ing in that the money required TO pay
Overseers and lunaS on other planta-
tons is saved entirely. The company
and the iaborer both benefit by that
In case of default on the part OF the
labOrer the company reserves the right.
as you will see by referring to- the
agreements. of carrying out his con-
tract at the expense of his share OF the
profits. Such cases, however, will be
very rare We shall have no trouble in
getting all the land put in that we can
furnish seed cane for. Most of the
Portuguese with whom we have agree
ments own their own land. OF course
all the parties planting on our lands
contract TO sell all the cane they raise
TO our mill"
Another question, Mr.. MCChesney.
How about the rainfall?"
Il am glad you have mentioned that
Kona is situated on the lee side of Ha-
waii and our land is in what is termed
the rain belt. Coffee grows there lux
uriantly. and where coffee does we'll
there is no scarcity of water. Our mill
is on the lowest of our lands. about
three miles from the beach at Kailua
and just inside the rain belt. On the
| higher lands there is much more rain.
| but the very best cane yet produced
there has come from the lower lands.
| The additional sun exposure seems to
make the cane grow thicker and sweet
| er There is no place on these Islands
where the rain is more evenly distrib-
uted than in Kona. On the upper gov
eminent road in that district coffee. ba-
nanas and cane grow to perfection. The
people depend solely on the rainfall
| from month to month for their water
supply. catching and storing the rain
| in barrels and tanks. There can be no
question about the sufficiency of the
rainfall: in fact. il is somewhat of
drawback above the road and even less
would be better. No one who has ever
lived in that part of Kona would ever
complain of the rainfall. Besides on
that side of the Island there are no
drying winds"
What varieties of cane do you
plant?'
"On the upper lands we find the New
Caledonia and Rose Bamboo to- be the
best: on the lower lands we plant the
Lahaina variety. We have really had
no fair test of the yield per acre. What
was ground at the small mill last year
yielded between five and ten tons to
the acre"
''One more question. What are the
prospects for the future with your eX-
perience TO date?
Better than ever. We find the men
work harder than under the contract
system We get more work in proper
ton with fewer men than under the
system heretofore in vogue. Under our
plan the company gets the benefit of
running a much larger plantation on
the same amount of capital than we
could if we employed the laborers di-
rect The higher sugar is in value the
more the laborer gets for his work.
while on the hand if sugar should go
down TO half it's present value the mill
would still be running at a profit. We
are more than satisfied with the out
look from our profit-sharing system as
far as we can judge of the future from
1.-THE past.