The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-12-11
BOYCOTT
PANESE
TRAOESMEN
Plan Suggested at
Meeting Of
Builders.
MISS CONAN HAS
LABOR SOLUTION
Practical Address Which Received
the Thanks OF Builders and
Traders Exchange.

AS a result of the address of Miss
Catherine Conan of Wellesley, present
ed last night before the Builders and
Traders Exchange of Honolulu, steps
may be taken in the near future
to have the planters, business men and
working men meet for discussion of
the labor problem with a view to boy
cotting Asiatic labor outside that en-
ployed in the cane fields. The senti-
ment was expressed both by members
Of the Exchange and the Trade Coun-
ell that such course would probably
be helpful to all non-Asiatics residing
here and would produce results which
would cause an influx of white laborers
into the Islands. 1t was stated that
the merchants of Honolulu were be-
ginning to feel the pinch of competition
by Asiatics and to understand that it
is to their interest to throw trade to
white men, and not to japanese and
Chinese.
Members of the two trades organiz-
ations came out at the meeting fiat-
footed in favor of a restricted imml
grafton of Chinese for agricultural pur-
poses only and for a limited number
of years to run, to be returned to China
at the expiration of their terms. The
suggestion was made that this would
tend to drive the japanese laborers
into the cities and towns and thereby
displace American and all white labor
ing men and mechanics. 1t was this
probability that suggested the meeting
of planters, business and workirgmen
to arrive at a basis of employing none
only with non-Asiatics as well.
Miss Conan presented novel
scheme as remedy for the present
labor difficulties, that as between jap
anese and Chinese the latter were pref
erable as field laborerS, and that they
be imported in limited numbers for a
period of ten years as plantation labor
ers, only in the cane fields but not in
and about the mills, as at the end of
this decade other means, notably inn
provements in machinery and possibly
the gradual introduction of white Ia
borers, would put the plantations on
different basis.
Miss Conan was introduced by w.
w. Harris, who said that the distin-
guished economist was in the Hawaii
an Islands looking up labor conditions
and that she hoped to obtain informa-
. horc Misc
Conan said she was hardly in posi-
ton to present a solution of the prob
lem, but that she had some sugges-
tions, the result of her observations
while touring the Islands and visiting
various plantations. She went over
the past efforts of the planters to
bring laborers of various nationalltles
into the Islands as experiments, dating
from the early fifties, when an attempt
was made to introduce Polynesians as
field workers, then Norwegians, Portu-
guese, Germans, Chinese. Japanese,
negroes, Spanish, Porto Ricans, and
others. A serious effort had been made
to get white labor, but without success.
The only classes glad to work on the
plantations were the Chinese and jap
anese. Today the larger proportion OF
laborers on plantation are Japanese.
1--WE are all eager that Hawaii should
be a white mans country" said she,
"a Hawaii for Americans. The ques-
ton is how to make it so and keen
it so. l have discussed the labor sit
uation with some of the thoughtful men
of the islands. 1 think that the contract
form of labor is repugnant to the
American. If restricted importation
So far as can observe it is then more
japanese. If the plantations fail, most
of the rest of you will go out of bust
ness also. Most of the work in the ISL
ands depends more or less upon the
success of the plantations.
mo one here wishes for moment
to contemplate the failure of the plan
tations. 1t would mean business col
lapse, an industrial crisis from which
1t would take long time to recover