The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-09-24
LABOR AND SUGAR.

The LABOR union issue III LHIS city was
precipitated by an attack upon the
sugar industry by Walking Delegate
Rosenberg. Before he came capital
and labor had got along here quite
amicably. Indeed many union labor
men were not unwilling under proper
restrictions, to see an increase in the
number of Asiatic field hands. The
attitude of organized labor, in many
of its departments, was not even in
imical to non-union employees. For in
stance, the two classes worked and are
still working side by side and on ap-
parently good terms in many of the
printing offices of this city; and We
hope that this peaceful and mutually
beneficial arrangement will long con-
tinue
But it ought to be understood by ev-
cry man who intends to earn his live
Iihood here, that the sugar industry
should be let alone. 1t is the one
present source of our prosperity. 1t
supplies, in one way or another, the
resources of capital and the employ
Inent of labor. without it there would
not be room for white men in Hawaii
and they would either have to get out
or create new conditions; with 1T there
is and always will be room for a great
many white men. All of us may wish
that the whole working population was
white; but If wishes were horses beg
CARS would ride. We have got to take
things as they are; here and wherever
else the cane sugar industry fiourishes,
there must be cheap, servile labor
Dear, independent labor. would ruin
the business.
1t is useless to talk as Walking Dele
gate Rosenberg did about the employ
ment of white men in the cane fields.
They simply will not do the work.
The San Joaquin farmers who took up
Eva plantation land on the co-opera-
tive plan some years ago, quickly hired
Japs to do the rough jobs. White men
object to taking a coolie billet; they
object ito the necessary discipline of
plantations; they prefer to do manual
labor in cooler climates. Mr..
Rosenberg insists that they would
come here and stay if paid enough,
but if certain wage-limit is passed
plantations cease to be profitable. For
dividends, especially the way sugar has
ho al aho n q hnr
is the vital prerequisite. If taken
away the plantation must be given up
Where would our white men be then?
The carpenters union would have few
houses to build and the seamen's union
few ships to load; in fact all the local
unions would soon disband for lack of
membership.
Negro labor has been suggested.
But who wants the country overrun
with the half-civilized, bestial blacks
of the South? Do we want to make
conditions here so that no woman is
safe unless guarded by an armed man?
People say that only the city negroes
are bad; that the country blacks are
all good ones. Don't believe it. The
negroes who live in comparative isola-
ton, away from crowds, schools and
police, are the ones that go back to
barbarism first. Nine out of ten
lynchings occur in the country; 1t is
the lonely suburb or the rural road IN
the South which harbors the most dan
ger. We may change our skies but
we do not change our natures; and
wherever a negro goes or lives he car
ries with him the animal instincts of |
his british race. There are too many |
blacks in Hawaii now; we want no
more. Even union men, on reflection,
will find it difficult not to agree with
this.
What remains is to give the planta-
lions the labor they need and bend all |
energies towards the building up OF
a community of white settlers on the |
vacant public lands The more white |
producers the better for all white in |
terests. This course would not, 1T is
true, give the unions all they seek, but |
it would help; while the scheme of the |
Walking Delegate would simply in |
volve the whole community in ruin.