The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-01-01

over-run with American settler The
experience of the British In heir
tropical possessions has been the anne
The traders alone have sought The
tropics, and they have been as rule
Temporary residents. Exceptionally
high profits in trade have invited a
limited number of merchants to these
Islands, and a small number of enter
Irising men to engage in the business
OF sugar making, as capitalists and
not as laborers.
Nowhere within the tropics has the
Teutonic race successfully planted col
cnies of men who titled their own land
in competition with the natives.
Though the British West Indies pos
sess marvellous agricultural resources
and genial climate, with near markets
for all produce, the starving poor and
miserably paid field peasantry OF Eng
land have not during a hundred and
twenty years of British possession en-
ierated to those Islands in order TO
till the soil, either as tenants or indie
pendent owners, though land was
cheap and abundant. Even now there
is an urgent cry from Queensland that
the sugar industry will decline unless
cheap Polynesian labor can be obtain
ed. Twenty-Five years ago Florida,
the tropics of the United States, was
swarming with northern men who set
tied in the State for the purpose OF
making fortunes in fruit raising, and
the cultivation of early vegetables, but
aside from the failure of the frult
crops, it is found that there is no
tempting profits in southern produce.
Many thousands have found that 1t is
as difficult to make money in the trop-
les as it is in the temperate zone.
The President of the United States,
il, his message, declares for a healthy
American community of men who
themselves till the farms they own In
these Islands. Every loyal American
il with him in this desire. 1t means
the dominance of the American race
here and in the future. But the Presi-
dent does not understand, for obvious
reasons, the nature of the peculiar
conditions here, aside from those which
Crerate generally to secure a large
white settlement in the tropics. He
may be assured that the American can
labor in the tropics if he chooses to
do so. But he must adjust himself to
new conditions by moderately changing
his habits of living which are more
suitable to the colder regions. He must
learn something from the experience of
the Polynesian race which Professor
Wallace has declared to be physically
che of the finest races Of the earth,
however much it lacks in character
and mental power. The American
woman, for lack of proper adjustment,
rapidly detoriates here in health, while
the Latin and Asiatic woman thrives.
The American who is properly accli-
mated is the superior of the native and
even of the Asatic in tilling the SOIL
Eut he will not labor or till the soil
50 long as he can find a Clover" class
OF laborers to till the soil for him.
Whenever the American gets on the
land in these Islands he at once en-
plcys cheap Japanese labor, and stands
himself as a proprietor. The same
conditions exist in the Southern States
where the white man employs the
cheap negro laborer as a rule with the
result that agriculture in those States
is q slip-shod affair. The development
OF the magnificent Western States of
is due TO the opening of the
soil by men who were forced to do
their own tilling; who were themselves
the lowest class in the community.
However hopeful and anxious the
President is, and all loyal Americans
share his hopes and anxieties, for the
existence of an independent class of
farmers here, each ''tilling his own
farm" it is not craftsmanship or good
judgment to ignore conditions which
cannot be controlled.
Besides, it seems to be forgotten that
there are on the Mainland vast tracts
It idle virgin soil waiting for the COM
ing tiller The day is far distant when
the American will find that vast en-
pire too crowded so that he is forced