The Hawaiian gazette., 1902-10-10
SUGAR AND AMERlCANlSM.

The San Francisco Chronicle Is new
er quite happy in its discussion oil the
labor problem in these Islands. II re-
fuses to believe that servile labor Is
needed here and frames an argument
to show that the white man, II decent
ly paid" would do the work that Is
now done by coolies. The theory Is one
which has been overthrow more than
once by the facts. White men have
been tried many times at wages which
they were not only willing to accept
hut anxious to earn, with the uniform
result that they threw up their jobs
and left the plantations for the town.
They would no more work in the cane
fields of Hawaii than they will in the
cane and cotton fields of the Southern
States or in the coffee forests of Cen
trail America. Going to California for
an example, IL is even so difiicult TO
get whites to pick fruit acceptably on
the torrid plains of the San Joaquin
that orchardists take Asiatics by pref
erence. Indeed the demand of Califor-
mans for Japanese has caused con-
siderable emigration from here.
Nor will white men cut and strip
cane in Hawaii on the plan of an
equitable division of the profits. Ey-
cry chance has been given them but IT
is no use. This is work for coolies,
they say, just as the Southern white
in disdaining plantation labor, says
This is work for niggers.'
We anticipate the Chronicles obJec-
ton that the whites were ill-treated. III
50, the records of the courts, to which
they had free access, do not show II.
Moreover, an employer, with "a Dig
crop on his hands, finds no profit In DO
ing anything to lessen the working
power OF his laborers. The truth ~
that white wage-earners here have had
white treatment, and on the pront-
sharing plan they were their own boss
es. The cooperative employers, 1t
should be said, did not care to work
with their own hands; they bossed'
And their hired men We're always Ash
atics.
The Chronicle goes so far as To say
that Americanism would be better OIL
here without the sugar industry If the
only way to sustain that industry is
through servile labor. But what A
mericanism we have depends as much
for it's living on the sugar industry as
the Americanism of California did be-
tween 1850 and 1860 on the gold indus
try. To abolish 1t would be to drive
Americans out to make a livelihood
elsewhere. 1t does not appear that the
California parallel would go further
and permit us to create new industries
in the place of sugar. Coffee would be
no substitute, as the American tarin
laws now stand, and servile labor is
as much needed for that as for sugar
Rice growing is never done by whites
anywhere in the world and probably
never will be. Hawaii cannot compete
with California in cereals and staple
fruits and vegetables; while delicate
tropical fruits, such as the mango and
alligator pear, cannot be protitably eX-
ported. They must travel on ice. a
manufacturing community cannot be
built up here on imported coal and oil.
SO what are we to do? If sugar goes.
Americans who stay, may be forced.
like the people of sydney Smiths ia
nous town, to earn a precarious sub
slstepce by taking in each others
washing.
1t may be, as the Chronicle says, that
Congress will again refuse to qualify
the Exclusion law for Hawaii's benefit.
Nevertheless, justice to this Territory
demands that it should do so. Special
laws have been enacted for Porto Rico
and the Philippines, and Hawaii needs
them as much as they. To be sure this
is Territory and Porto Rico and the
Philippines are merely possessions; but
fair play is morally the same the world
around. Where Americanism would be
hurt by liberality to Hawaii, pro-
viding our Chinese We're not allowed to
go to the mainland, the people of Ha-
wall cannot clearly see. We know that
prosperous sugar brings Americans
here to embark in all kinds OF enter
prises for which sugar provides the
capital and that depressed sugar sends
then away. What the argumentative
conclusion is we leave To the Chronicle
itseA