The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-10-08
SUGAR AND AMERlCANIsM.

SUGAR AND AMERlCANiSM.
The San Francisco Chronicle is nev
er quite happy in its discussion Oh III
labor problem in these Islands. II re
fuses to believe that servile LABOR II
needed here and frames an argumen
to show that the white man, if decent
" paid" would do the work that Il
now done by coolies. The theory is one
which has been overthrown more than
once by the facts. White men nave
been tried many times at wages when
they were not only willing to accep'
but 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 Tor
an example, it is even so difficult 10
get whites to pick fruit acceptablyS 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. Ev-
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. If
SO, the records of the courts, to which
they had free access, do not show it.
Moreover, an employer, with a big
crop on his hands. finds no profit in do
ing anything to lessen the working
power OF his laborers. The truth is
that white wage-earners here have had
white treatment, and on the profit
sharing plan they We're their own boss
es. The cooperative employers, it
should be said, did not care to work
with their own hands; they bossed!
And their hired men were always Ash
atics.
The Chronicle goes SO far as to say
that Americanism would be better off
here without the sugar industry if the
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 it would be to drive
Americans out to make livelihood
elsewhere Tt 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 tariff
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
p
fruits and vegetables; while delicate
tropical fruits, such as the mango and
alligator pear, cannot be profitably 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 |
sistence by taking in each others
washing
1t may be, as the Chronicle says, that
Congress will again refuse to qualify |
the Exclusion law for Hawaiis 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 Americanisn would be |
hurt by lberality to Hawaii, pro-
viding our Chinese were 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
them awaw What the argumentative
conclusion is we leave to the Chronicle
itself.
There is less noise and more hard
work about the Republican campaign
this year than two years ago and no
hc,li1. raccerizar ~ tl,a,,