The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-09-13
BUSINESS MEN TELL
OF ISLANDS, NEEDS
Planters Association and Merchants Offer Memorials
Which Set Forth Views on Many
important Subjects.

increase in that period only 2472, and that
of Chinese 1SS men arrived and 1,41S left
making total decrease of 1890, so there
was a net increase in the japanese and
! Chinese population of only 1242, not in
Guiding women, which number are not
necessarily field laborers alone.
+ When .he labor conditions whicn he'd
to be faced after annexation were realized
the Planters Association set about finding
laborers on the continent of the United
States. Some Portuguese were brought
from the neighuorhood of New Bedford
and some Italians were secured in the
Eastern States and started for Hawaii,
but the bulk of them dropped out on the
way across the continent and but COM
paratively few reached these islands. An
unsuccessful attempt to get negroes Of
better class was made, and finally about
1880 Puerto Rican men with their fami-
lies were brought here at very great ex-
pense Agents from this Association were
for long established the mainland and
travelled over it's length and breadth to
find there such labor as our plantations
! demanded. 1t was by no means ques-
ton with us of Asiatic labor alone, but
one of any kind of labor, and yet wher-
ever we turned we found that'the great
continent had reaoIly absorbed all the
labor there was, and there was no sur
plus for US.
+, The efforts to find some way of cuIti-
waiting our cane fields were not confined
to those above mentioned. There existed
in the minds of some the impression that
the proper way to conduct a plantation
was TO divide the land into small lots and
place them in the hands of white men to
cultivate, instead of doing the work of
cultivation by day laborers working for
wage under one controlling management.
Accordingly the Eva Plantation on this
island of Oahu, decided to experiment
/ with American farmers. Fifteen families
J of highly respectable people We're care
fully selected in the Western States, and
all their expenses paid to the plantation,
where houses had been erected for them,
each with a garden patch surrounding it,
and wnere large patch of common land
had been set apart for their use pasture
for such stock as they desired to keep.
/ Here they were given parcels of land to
cultivate in cane, on a profit sharing
basis and every help was rendered in the
way of ploughing and preparing their
fields, but Notwithstanding this and alhS
the Eva Plantation Co. expended on this
most creditable effort to raise cane by
white farmers, these people We're not able
to perform the necessary labor, and they
drifted away by degrees, so that in about
a year none of the fifteen families were
left. Other experiments of similar ma
/ ture have been made, with like results
The planters generally are prepared to
encourage the cultivation of cane by small
farmers, il there is any assurance that the
undertakings will be carried out e-~s
In connection with the questions of
homesteading and of developing Hawaii
on strictly American lines it is proper to
point out that all the lands cultivated by
plantation companies who find it neces-
sary to irrigate, because of the uncertain
ty of the rainfall, were either arid wastes
or bare pasture lands before they were
acquired by these companies who sunk
artesian wells, established expensive
pumping plants, constructed their bitches
and pipe lines and at enormous cost
brought water onto the lands, and there
by made agriculture a possibility. If
development of homesteaders only had
been possible, the lands which are now
felus would be in their primitive
condition, because their irrigation was
only rendered possible by the investment
of very large amount of capital
Apart from this fact, there remains the
all-important consideration that even if
white men could labor in the cane fields
and were willing to undertake such work.
there is no possibility of obtaining from
any quarter, and least of all from the
United States mainland, a sufficient num-
ber to fill our needs.
At present as has been said, Japan is
the only source of our labor supply, and
while no dissatisfaction with the work
people of that country is either express
ed or implied, our experience has taught
US that it, like all other countries from
which we have in the past endeavored
to introduce laborers, is not to be relied
upon for that regular and sufficient sup
ply which is essential to our success as
a cane sugar country and we believe
that a properly regulated and restricted
immigration of Chinese field laborers
would solve our difficulty without in the
slightest degree interfering with the well
fare of the native or American population
of the group On the contrary as the
prosperity of the staple industry of these
islands increases. so will that of the en-
tire population irrespective of nationality
or occupation as sugar is the pivot on
which we revolve, and on the success of
the sugar industry depends the we'll
being of every resident in the islands,
Surprise has at times been expressed by
those of imperfect knowledge of our con-
ditions that other Industries besides SUI
gar do not attract more attention in Ha-
waii, but a more intimate acquaintance
with US has speedily discovered the fact
that while the possibilities of this coun-
try outside of the sugar industry are not
iinconsiderable the difficulty of securing
an adequate supply of labor stands al
ways in the way of enterprise alongside
of other difficulties which need not be
here referred to-
a few years back great hopes Were en-
tertained that the cultivation of coffee
could be prof1tably undertaken on a large
scale. It had been grown in a somewhat
unscentific manner for years, and was al
ways widely esteemed by reason of its
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