The San Francisco call., 1899-09-11
LABORERS GAIN
A BIC PO|NT 7
Trouble of Planters in
Hawaii.
FORCED TO RELEASE MEN
GALICIANS WHO HAD VIOLATED
THEIR CONTRACTS.
Having Been Imprisoned, Public
Opinion Grew So Strong That the
Employers Were Forced to
Free Them.

HONOLULU, Sept. 2.-This afternoon
Will long be memorable one in the an
nails of Hawaii, not merely because it
curiously happens to coincide with the
sixty-frst anniversary of the birth of ex-
Queen Liliuokalani, but because the
pressure of public opinion has won a
grand victory IN obtaining the release by
the Oahu Sugar Plantation Company of
the thirty-six Galician contract laborers
imprisoned in Oahu Jail for violating
their contracts.
1t will be remembered that in November
OF last year AZ out of a batch of 200 Cali
clans were arrested under the slavery
penal contract labor laws for deserting
contract service. They were fined and
imprisoned until they were willing TO re-
return to work, preferring to work upon
the roads In the striped suits of 1ne con-
Wet until at / o'clock to-day, they were
released.
For some time past the cancellation of
the contracts and the release of the men
have been considered by the managers of
the oahu plantation and the Planters
Supply Association. Then the more vrile,
If savage, attacks of the Sunday Volcano
increased popular Indignation. but when
The Call added its influence in attacking
the nefarious system it was soon known
and felt that the planters would have to
sucCumb and establish what Minister of
Interior King, president Of the Board
of immigration, deems a very bad dan
release of these men.
The Government and Messrs. H Hack
field & Co., agents of the Oahu planta-
ton, have for some short time past been
in negotiation-lf the term is not inappro>
priate-for the release, but until last
evening the details could not be arranged,
as the Government had no power to act
except under the terms of an absolute
request for their release by the parties in
terested in placing them in jail.
The directors of the Oahu plantation
met, and in view of the serious probable
effects upon piantin interests in general,
consulted the directorate of the Planters
Association, who advised the action as
a concession to public opinion. The result
was a statement to the Government that
the Oahu Company would have no objec>
tion to the release of the prisoners If
the Government should see fit to take
such step. The Government notified
the plantation that this communication
did not afford them sufficient basis upon
which TO act. This morning MIR. Z. Suhr,
managing director for II. Hackfeld &
Co. forwarded a letter containing an
unqualified request for the release of the
men, and Attorney-General Cooper
promptly gave the necessary instructions
for their release.
The plantation will be the loser of the
sums advanced to the men, amounting
to something over $4,000. They are also
willing to give them work, but under con-
tract If the men are willing to work
ors in road building, at which they are
now adopts; but If they prefer to loaf
the vagrancy laws will be enforced
against them.
There was a slight demonstration when
the men paraded the streets after their
release, and the supporters of Mr.. Sewan
are endeavoring to make political capital
out of 1t as against the Dole faction.
Monday next, being Labor day, will be
duly observed here for the first time as
a semi-holiday.