The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-12-17
POSSIBILITIES.

From various parts of the Islands
and from all classes Of thought comes
the protest against restricting the SUI
gar areas of the Islands. The unbaked
theorists of Honolulu have few sup
porters outside of the city, because
those outside the city know where the
wealth of the country lies and know
the only way in which it can be eX-
p'oited. There are places where small
farming can give a tolerabe living, but
the great areas of the lower lands re-
quire capital on an extended scale to
work them. If they are not so worked
they will have to be abandoned, and
revert to the red earth covered with a
scrubby and scanty vegetation which
was their condition before the fertiliz-
ing water was either pumped from the
natural reservoirs deep down in the
bowels Of the earth, or brought by
bitches thirty or forty miles in length
from distant water sheds.
The whole fabric Of this Territory
rests upon sugar now as it rested upon
whale oil and bone forty to fifty years
ago. Take away the sugar industry up
on a large scale and the whole fabric
will come tumbling down. The large
stocks of goods carried by wholesale
and retail houses will simply not be re-
newed, and the manufacturers and |
agents at the coast will just be that |
much out. 1t must be remembered that |
the trade between the Territory and |
San Francisco is very important, and !
that the Islands stand third on the
commercial lists of that port
Take away the sugar industry and
where would be the need for the inn
port of such quantities of hay and
grain which come down shipoad by
shipload, gathered from the farms of
California and Washington and Ore
gon. Take away the sugar industry
and there would be no further need
for the importation of meat. We would
be able to raise all the beef our scanty
population would need. For our popu-
lation would very speedily dwindle.
Hawaians, Portuguese, and few
AsiatiCs would remain, but the Ameri-
can mechanic, the carpenters plumbers,
iron workers, painters and so forth
would strike out for places where mo-
ney could be made and where people
did not vegetate.
And where would the small farmer
be. At the present time, as long as
sugar prosperity lasts, the small far
mer finds a comfortable niche for him
self, and The Star has always advo-
Gated that it was necessary that there
should be more small farms, though
there are quite a number now. Con-
slider the slopes Of Haleakala, above
the plantation belt. The land there is
cut up into a number Of small farms.
These people raise corn, potatoes,
beans have quite number of fruit
trees set out, feed pigs and have in the
majority of cases a COW or so, and
some even manage to run a few cattle.
They have a ready market for their
produce, The plantation camps on the
lower slopes need it, and the surplus is
shipped to Hawaii or to Honolulu. But
take away the plantation markets and
where would the small farmers on Ha-
leakala. The Kula district, as it is
called would be as deserted as it was
twenty years ago, when there We're not
half a dozen houses between Ulupala-
kua and MakawaO. The small farmer
would dispose of his holding, and lean
cattle would pick up a precarious sub
sistence where there had once been a
flOurlshing succession of homesteads.
1t is the same with the homesteads
of Hamakua. They exist and are fairly {
successful because they have their mar
ket close to them in the plantations of {
the lower belt Not only have they