The Pacific commercial advertiser., 1903-10-27
SUGAR INDUSTRIES OF
HAWAII AND TRINIDAD
William Kay, Planter From West Indian Island,
Gives Ills Impressions of Plantations in
These IsIands-.-Visited Oahu and Hawaii

sion due to the bounty-fed beet sugar, |
we had to meet the competition and
sell our sugar at cost price on the eS- |
tate. The planters have been hanging |
on now for some years; some of them
at loss, waiting for the bounty sys-
tenn to end, for naturally with no pros
pect of the continental bounty being
abolished capital was loath to invest
in our main industry. In Hawaii you
have the benefit of the protection given
by the United States.
| Our fields are worked almost entire
ly by negro and East Indian labor.
| Our negroes consider to be much su-
perior to the southern negro Of the
United States. Unskilled field labor
in Trinidad costs from forty to seventy
cents a day, although it is hard to
strike an average, because we have
so little day labor, doing our work al
most entirely by the piece. Our field
labor costs f,om forty to forty-five
cents a day. Our indentured East
Indian immigrants cost about twenty
five cents day, and the cost of keep
runs the expense to forty cents. The
government brings in the immigrants
and we pay two-thirds of the expense
through an export duty on sugar.
The other third comes out of the gen.
eral revenue. The term of indenture
is five years, after which the East In
dians are allowed to do as they please.
About one fourth of them go back
yearly. We get four or five ship
loads annually, each trip bringing six
or seven hundred laborers. About
one-thfrd of the immigrants brought
in are women. Generally the East In
dian remains with US and engages in
farming, many of them going in also
for shop keeping and other pursuits.
There are no skilled artisans among
them, that class comes from the ne
groes. The East Indian becomes a
good citizen.
Our fields are planted in twenty
or twenty-five foot beds with drainage
canals down each side. We have no
pests to contend with of any moment,
although the borer does some damage.
Our chief danger is to the young cane
from droughts or floods.
! Il spent fortnight along the Hilo
and Hamakua coasts since coming
here" continued Mr.. Kay, "and visited
many of the plantations along the way.
This week I visited Honolulu planta-
ton and after seeing a few more Of
the Oahu estates will go to Kauai.
From my observations so far believe
the Hawaiian planters go in for more
intense cultivation; they cultivate far
more than we do; that is probably be-
cause the soil is more fertile. I drove
through the Hamakua district from
Hilo to Waimea. The most promi-
nent impression one gets is the yield
the large amount of cane standing.
Many of the estates are broken up by
ravines and gulches and I think are
more difficult to work than our plan
tations. In Hilo the grinding plants
are superior although I did not like
the arrangement of the mills. The
Honolulu mill is splendid though, L
like the arrangement of it immensely.
especially the labor saving devices and
the arrangement of the interior re-.
quiring a minimum of supervision.
I'm the West Indies triple crushing
is the exception, while here I find it to
be the rule. In Trinidad the double
rollers are used almost entirely. Your
plantations are larger also in acreage
and tremendously larger in output. J.
was impressed with the purity of the
juice in the Hilo and Hamakua dis
tricts I was struck also with the
great kindness and courtesy shown ev-
erywhere, and I certainly appreciate
it,
Mr.. Kay will go to Kauai this week.