The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-08-23
WHITE CANE FIELD LABOR
A FAILURE IN QUEENSLAND

show that while the immigration of the
kanaka was held in allegiance, the in
duStry also remained in allegiance and
when the embargo was removed, the
output of sugar increased the following
year by nearly fifteen thousand tons"
The following extract from an arti-
Gle in the Queensland Agricultural
Journal is interesting, as bearing upon
the contention that white men can
work on the sugar fields of tropical
Queensland:
1t has BEEN stated that trashing Is
unnecessary, and the controversy on
that point is as old as sugar growing,
but all l can say is that the planter
who does not trash runs three risks at
least. One is that during continued
wet weather the rain lodges at the
joints of the cane just at the buds,
and is held there by the trash The
next thing is, the buds swell and quick
ly grow into suckers all up the cane,
, thus reducing the density of the juice,
and causing more labor to dress the
cane for the mill I have had a whole
field of cane in this state owing to
want of hands to trash, and to the re-
fusal of the regular hands-plowmen,
horse drivers, etc.-to save the crops
by doing the work.
The second risk is that the trash
harbors numbers of insects, such as
w men lIlJure ana the
| third is, that, at a time when the cane
requires all the sun and air it can get
| to ripen it and raise the sugar contents
of the juice, it is smothered in a mass
| of dead leaves which effectually keep
| off light, sun and air. Again, when
cane cutting is going on, the heaps Of
| trash collected at the foot of the cane
stools give the cutters harder work to
| do. Now, picture to yourself a so or
Hn11 If vol
| stands from eight to ten feet high, IN
serried rows some six feet apart, with
J half that distance between the stools
| of cane, which number from SIX to
twelve canes per stool Much of the
! cane has been blown down, and lies in
| a tangled mass under foot. Every
| single cane is clothed with a casing of
dead leaves from the ground to the
green crown. This is the so-called
| trash which has to be removed to
| enable the sun and air to act directly
! on the cane.
| Enter this field, and few yards
| from it's outside edge you will find 1t
| difficult to force your way further.
| Overhead the pitiless blazing sun Of the
| tropics. Should there be any breeze at
all, not breath of it can find it's way
! further than few yards into the
| thickly growing cane. The thermome-
| ter stands at from 120 to $50 degrees
| Fahrenheit in the sun, and added to
this there is a deadly muggy dampness
| everywhere which renders the heat
more oppressive.
| THE trash is easily detached from
| the cane stalk-a child can pull a dead
| leaf off with his finger and thumb. All
! that the laborer has to do is to throw
| himself upon the stool of cane, plunge
| both arms into the accumulated trash,
| drag it clear of the cane, and deposit
/ it in the clear space between the rows.
The canes are thus left quite bare from
| root to crown. Easy enough you say,
the trash is neither heavy nor prickly.
| No, but as the work is usually done
in dry weather, clouds of fine dust rise
from the cracking leaves. The laborer
| is smothered with this dust, which gets
! into his eyes and nostrils, covers his
/ whole body with streaming dirt, and
| chokes up his bronchial tubes as badly
as if he We're working a cotton gin IN
| a close room. In addition to this an
| noyance, there is a still greater one,
/ arising from the hairs fringing each
| joint of the cane stalk. These become
| detached in the process of trashinS,
/ and stick into the skin like the fine
hairs on certain caterpillars, or the fine
| spiculae on the fruit of the prfckly
/ pear. These cause intense irritation;
| the skin burns and itches, and there
/ is no possible escape or relief from it
| till Knockout time. Then, as I have
| said, the blazing sun overhead beats
/ pitilessly on the unprotected worker,
| the dust chokes every pore, and by the
| time he has worked half an hour or so,
| if he be white man, small wonder
| that he fights shy of trashing cane.
Int Sugar Journal.