The Hawaiian gazette., 1901-08-27
WHITE LABOR
EXPERIMENT
How It Worked on
a Small Scale
at Eva.
w nth conditions which they ad-
w mitted could not be more IA

higher pay, fourteen Californians cam,
10 Hawaii two years ago to work on 9
sugar plantation To the party of four
teen we're allotted 1871 acres of the bes
hand of the Eva plantation. and ye
with every advantage that they asked
and without any objection to the man
agement- OF that number only FIVE re.
NAMED until the first crop of cane was
slatured.
Although they made for the entire
term of their service with the planta-
tiOn $40 per month. with house. fuel
water. a garden of 5000 square feet
schools and q train to convey the chill
areR, n physician when they called on
him, free Of cost, not one of the five
cared to continue the raising of cane
though two are still with the Eva plan
tatiOn as overseers. And more. when
the cane was arriving at maturity, the
men who remained refused to either
strip cut or load their crop and this
work had to be done by Japanese.
These facts tell of the first serious
and the only determined attempt to
plant a purely American colony upon
a Hawaiian cane field. 1t was to be the
lOI iidu IL Dte1 SutttSSiul
there would have been carried out the
original plans, made by former Man
ager w. ]. I<owrie of the estate which
contemplated the cutting up of the
plantation into small fields, of an av-
erage of 100 acres to fourteen men, to
be cultivated by the members Of the
hui, and the planting of an American
plantation Of above 1000 men, AMI
their families upon the broad acres of
this estate. The total failure of the
experiment, for Japanese huis now do
the work upon the very plans followed
by the con pany in the arrangements
with the Americans, convinces the
plantation men who came into contact
with the trials that the white man can
do any kind of work that is necessary
upon a plantation with sugar cane. but
that he will not do some kinds of work
on any basis, and that he will not do
any kind for long time.
OF the men who took up their homes
at Eva, five were married and had
families. The assertions began when
the colony had been on the plantation
only a month. The first man to leave
went because his wife would not stand
the quiet life; The wife of the second
died within a few months and he would
not stay: the third had a quarrel with
a neighbor and quit; another soon after
was taken Ill and left for the Coast, and
then, six months having elapsed. and
the cane being in fair condition five of
Inc young men deserted the plantation
IN body, taking only their personal
belongings and surrendering any prof
its which might come to them under
two were old men, one was a middle
aged man and two were boys. They
stuck 1t out and then when the cane
was mllled they took the money and re-
FUSED TO longer work at raising cane.
That they were not extraordinary men
in any way is further shown from the
fact that at the present time, of the
2,l0O men on the plantation there aia
only three Americans. and these are
working with teams. There have been
many more, but during the two years
of the administration Of the present
manager there has not been an Ameri-
can who would do manual labor in the
cane fields and keep at 1t.
Without going into the various jea-
ousies and petty quarrels. which IN
the old days back East would have
been called CLOTHES line fights" which
kept the colony in constant turmoil,
the capacity of the Californians to do
hard and constant work was brought
into high light. The oft repeated as
sertion that one intelligent American
workman is worth two or three CHEAP
men, was conclusively dsproven. The
greatest amount of labor in the cultiva-
ton of cane is in irrigating and hoeing.
This Is not hard or fast work There
must be let into a ditch just so much
water. More win wash the land; less
will not keep the cane up to its grow
ing powers for the nine days To hoe
the cane along the rows while the wa
ter is running into the ditch is such
hight work that 1t is often performed
by women. 1t can be done only so fast
for the man must stay in the ditch to
see that the water is coming all right. !
In this II is clearly to be seen that an
American cannot do more than the !
most ignorant of Orientals.
When the cane is ripening th.sIower
leaves must be stripped from the !
members of the California colony. but |
they would not continue to do it, The |
STOPPING position necessary for the !
labor was harder upon the stalwart
American than il was upon the little |
brown man. Actual tests showed con-
that the japanese could do |
more than the Californians. and it was |
only short time until the white men !
utterly refused to go into the close |
rows of cane and strip. When the cut
ting season came on the white men had |
been hiring so much OF their work |
done that they tried this branch of the |
work without much heart for it. The
swinging of the cane knife is not es-
sentially hard work, but the men would
not take to ii, and after slight trials
they gave up and this ended their ac-
Ia with he