The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-09-15
OUR LABOR CONDITIONS.

, try, made Dy those VINO nave political
grievances against the employers of Ia
Dor, assumes that the Orientals have
been brought in to exclude American
citizens from the fields. Now there are
two large classes of such citizens here,
the enfranchised Hawaiians and the
white men, and from none of them, so
far as we know, have the attacks pro-
ceeded If the Senatorial Commission
will inquire of Hawaiians and whites
if they viii, under any Circumstances, do
the card work of the plantations, it will
soon find that they will not. Should
any exceptions appear the men can get
work at once by applying at the plant
ers' labor agency. The truth is that
there are no exceptions. Our American
citizens do not care to go on plante-
tons and hence. if sugar is to be pro-
duced, some other class of people must
be employed.
In looking about for substitutes the
planters have by no means tied them
selves up to Orientals. They imported
thousands of Portuguese, but these en-
terprising people wanted homes and
completeness and forthwith went about
getting them. They. could do better
than work for farm wages. Germans
were tried but the climate proved too
severe for them. Galicians were
brought in but they were like the Ger
mans. Later the planters tried negroes
and those they got from the South were
the ones the southernerS were most
anxious to be rid of and they have been
keeping our Jail full ever since. An ex-
pertinent wasEmade with Porto Ricans
and they have fallen a long way short
of expectations White families have
been brought in from California to
raise cane on the profit-sharing plan.
hard work, and after a little time got
homesick and went back to the wheat
fields and fruit orchards of the San
Joaquin.
What were the planters. to do? Give
up sugar? They could hardly be ex-
pected to do that, having sixty millions
invested So they fell back on Asiatics,
who were willing to do the work and
able to do it well.
Unfortunately for the white trades,
some Of the Chinese preferred to be
skilled laborers and went to the towns
to work Much skilled labor came in
from Japan and competed. This was
not the fault of the planters, for the
same thing had happened on the coast. !
Over there it was the fault of the I
treaty-making power, the United States I,
Senate, and over here the general trend
Of American treaties was followed. Had
t not been followed, even unskilled la |
ooT could not have been had, especially .
rom Japan, the main source of supply. 5
Japan was proud and would accept no
'orm of exclusion. During the life of
he republic she sent slliploads
If young men here, ostensibly at their
,wn expense, certainly not at ours, who
we're billeted at "students'' and free
aborers, the evident purpose being to
lood the country and later to demand
he same terms of suffrage granted by
he republic to all who would take the
qualified OATH Annexation came and
stopped the suffrage conspiracy but it
lid not stop the coming of Japanese,
whose right to enter here and engage
n legitimate business was not denied
~ United States law.
Naturally the Asiatics, by underbid-
ling white men, have acquired a stand
~. =; n t.
California before the enactment of the
1eary law; and the Japanese are doing
70 now. There seems to be no way to
prevent it while the present treaties re-
main in force. White men protest, but
hose who protest loudest are the ones
Who buy their clothing, groceries, fur
liture and what not at the Japanese
torres. They foi1ow the law of buying
What they want in the cheapest market
md are hardly in shape to criticisel
Ill is said, the White population, espe-
tally the business classes, would be
dad to see more whites and fewer ORR
ntals; for it is white men who ought
o be the best customers of what other
White men have to sell, be the commod-
ty newspapers, dry goods, boots and
hoes, hats, groceries, restaurant prov
nder, coal, hotel accommodations, race
lorses, drugs or pew-sittingsi in a
hurch. But what are we going to do
bout it while the existing treaties
tand? Upon that point Hawaii would
greatly value the advice of the Sena-
orial Commission, the members of
which are part Of the treatymaking
,ower. Shall we take up the sand-lot
;ry: THE Orientals must go!'' or shall
We await the pleasure of the govern
nent?