The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-01-04
HARRY Won HOLT
TALKS OF HAWAII
Ills Opinion Of Porto Rican and
White Labor Condi-
tons.
Especial to the Advertiser.

SAN FRANCISCO. Dec. 2s.-Tht
Herald, of Los Angeles, has the fol
lowing:
Harry Won Holt, business man of Ho.
nolulu, and one of the largest sugar
growers on the Island of Oahu, is visit
ing Los Angeles for a few days en-
route to Hawaii from an extended tour
through Europe with his Wife. Mr..
Won Holt has spent the greater por-
tfon of his life in the Islands, and IS
thoroughly conversant with the exist
ing conditions there. Being interested
in the large Eva s'-gar plantation back
OK Honolulu. he has had considerable
dealings with the Porto Rican contract
laborers, who have been imported
there, and who recently caused consid-
cradle comment here when they passed
through because of their starving con-
dition. All the Porto Ricans shipped
to Hawaii were brought from New
Orleans over the Southern Pacific and
shipped from transport from Port Los
Angeles. AT the time many people
criticised the shippers and the railroad
company for starving these poems and
their people while en- route.
They were a miserable lot when
they arrived on the plantations" said
Mr.. Won I.,,.t yesterday, but they
had been starving g. heir own country
for years, and are utterly unfit to care
for themselves. They Jared well enough
in transportation, but were lot of
living skeletons when they arrived. be-
cause of this long poverty which they
have suffered, and of course were
worthless at first as far as labor went.
During the first month the planters fed
them and tried to get them settled.
while they pretended to do a little work
about the fields. At the end of the
month, when they We're each paid a
few dollars apiece, instead of providing
themselves with the necessities of life
and preparing themselves for work.
they all rushed straight to the nearest
store and had a grand picnic. The
first day they spent every cent of their
earrings on absolutely nothing but
soda water, sweet crackers and cigar
cites. They gorged themselves on these
absurdities like children. They had to
be taken up and provided for again by
the planters, and have proved poor
THE Islands neec a class Of immi-
grants who will become hard working
and not a class Of paupers.
ut is very hard to find. however, a
white man of the farming class who
Will work long with his own hands un-
der the conditions that exist there. |
Asiatic labor-principally japanese at |
been and, 1t seems, will |
nave to continue to be, the dependence !
IF the country. A white man will not |
york beside an Asiatic. A white far |
ner buys a farm and commences to |
work it with his own hands, as he does |
m the continent; soon he realizes that 1
lie can hire Asiatic labor to till the l.
and SO cheaply that he can better af-
ord to engage his own laborers and /
lire himself out as an overseer on some :.
plantation than to farm on his own ac-
cunt.
There is no climatic reason why |;
rhite men should not work IN the cane
elds of the Hawaiian Islands as well
s Asiatics. The conditions are health
ul
The Islands are prosperous under {;
he present order of things. Since the
oming of the American government | {
feels more secure and all
aIues have become more solid" ;