The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-08-23


labor for the well being of the sugar
industry, the supply of which is threat
ened with being eventually stopped by
the action of the federal government,
sent a special commissioner to report
on the circumstances connected with
the present carrying on of the industry
in Queensland.
The Queenslander commissioner VS.
tied the Isis, Bundaberg and Bingera
districts, and the result of his inyesti-
cations shows the fallacy of the idea
of carrying on profitable production OF
cane sugar with only white men as
laborers. One cane planter or farmer
after another told the same story Of
the unreliability of the white laborer,
of his physical unfitness for heavy
work of trashing and cutting in trop-
ical cane fields, his indisposition for
such continued heavy work, his inso-
| lence and INSTRUMENTATION, and absurd
and unfair demands, and finally the
| irregularity of the supply of such Ia
| Dor. To this must be added the in
| termittent nature of the demand for
special labor connected with trashing
and cutting, as it only lasts at most
about three months every year.
| The experience of the Hawaiian ISL
| ands is alluded to by the reporter. In
| that country, contrary to the consti-
| tutional law of the United States, the
| planters were allowed to employ Ash
attic labor for q time, and meanwhile
agents were despatched to the United
States and Canada who sent over sew
| erai gangs of white laborers. They
were set to work and received good
! wages, but they got tired of the work
and paid the colored laborers to do it
! for them.
The Australian premier, who has
| been making a tour of Queensland,
said that small holdings would solve
| the problem of white versus black Ia
| Dor totally overlooking the fact that
even though the productiveness of the
land We're greatly increased by this
| system, still the main difficulty would
remain, that of the incapacity of the
white man for such severe physical
exertion under a tropical sun in the
close atmosphere of the cane field.
The managers of the ChilderS mill
belonging to the Colonial Sugar Rein
| ing Company, did not think there was
the slightest possibility of getting
| white men to work in the cane fields,
even in Southern Queensland, notwith-
| standing its close proximity to the
| principal labor centers.
| The farmers in the Bundaberg dis
| trict, who all employ Kanakas for cane
| cutting, considered the white man to
| be capable of the work, but stated
| he would not do it at any price if he
could avoid it, as it taxed the physical
| endurance of the strongest man; they
further said there was often a search
| ty of such labor just at critical juno
+! lures.
| The managers of a large plantation
| in the Bundaberg district were of the
| opinion that if they were deprived OF
| Kanaka labor it would be impossible
! to continue cane growing, and related
| the experience of three white men who
came from New South Wales and took
| up forty acres of scrub land, fully IN
| tending and resolved to do their own
work, but who eventually had to beg
! for a gang of Kanakas to complete the
| work, and then left the district. The
man who next took up the land worked
| it by the ordinary method. using col
ored labor for the heavy work, and is
| there still, doing well.
f! The proprietor of another plantation
mentioned, among other statements
! Tall to the same effect as those pre-
viously heard), having once engaged
| twenty-one white laborers TO cut cane.
| They started in the early morning, but
when the overseer went an hour or two
| later to see how the work was pro-
crossing, he found all gone but three.
| and the cane cut foot from the
ground.
| One of the MeSSrs. Young, the we'll
known proprietors of Fairymead plan
| tation, who have had some twenty
years experience in the district, spoke
| emphatically on the question of Poly
nesian labor as a necessity from the
point of view of the maintenance of the
| labor supply, as Well as from that of
! the financial success of the industry.
| The farmers of the Bingera district
, We're singularly unanimous in express
ing determination to abandon cane
! cultivation if the only reliable means
! of carrying it on, that of using Kama
! ka labor, was rendered unavailable. ~
They are all strong democrats, but rec
ognize that the success of the Indus
try is only possible with the aid of the
Kanaka. The representative Of the
Queenslander closes by saying that as
he neared the end of his investigation
in the subtropical districts, he could
only reflect on the monotonous reitera-
ton of the answer: Impossible to
grow sugar successfully without the
aid of the Kanaka," even though some
of the farmers who gave this opinion
held what might be termed strong Ia
Dor views. In one case the manager
dismissed the question with d con-
temptuous wave of the hand" The
following seems conclusive: THE man
ager of the Millaquin and Yengari SUI
gar Company, of Bundaberg, gave
some interesting particulars concerning
the employment of Polynesian labor
and its effect on the industry, both as
regards the production of the sugar
and the subsequent refining process.
When the crisis occurred due 10 legis-
lation preventing the Kanaka from be-
ing employed in the sugar fields, much
land being cleared to supply new mills
was allowed to revert to forest, and
contemplated new mills were not pro-
ceeded with. Machinery manufactur-
ed for the purpose was offered at
very low price without its being re-
moved from the packing cases. Mel
bourne capitalists who had invested In
Mackay sugar fields foresaw that the
industry was doomed in Queensland.
and in the year 1890, therefore, Joined
with others and erected sugar refln-
cry at Port Melbourne. For four years
the company refined sugar made in
Java by black labor. not only in the
6alI l.,