The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-24
TRADE Opportunities
WITH THIS TERRITORY
Edwin 5. Gill, Formerly United States Commits
sioner Here, Writes of Seattle's Chance
With Hawaii in Puget Sound Paper.

produce the finest pine apples in the
world and a great impetus has been
given to their cultivation since 1900.
Only last year a cannery was erected
on the Island of Oahu, near Honolulu
and the entire product of the first year
was sold to a San Francisco house be-
fore the cannery began operations. The
Singapore pineapple which we get in
our local market in no way compares
to the Hawaiian product. Bananas
superior to those of the Central Amer
lean states are grown in the Islands
and a large business in the shipment
of bananas to San Francisco has been
built up in the last three years. Yu-
catan sisal is proving a profitable crop
and it produces a better rope than the
, best Manila hemp With a direct line
of steamers between Seattle and the
Islands and sugar refinery here
much of this trade would come here.
What do the Islands want that Sc
attic and the State of Washington can
supply? They want our flour as they
produce none of their own; they want
our apples, our potatoes, our fresh
fruits. such cherries, prunes, pears
and pluf1s. They want our beef and
mutton. our poultry and eggs; they
want our butter and cheese; they want
our beer, and if our wholesalers will
but compete in prices with San Fran
cisco and New York they will buy
much of their dry goods in this city.
Then too the Islands buy large guam
titles of machinery for the plantations
every year and we could secure a good
share of that business.
Certainly people who do between S40,-
0OO 100000 and $50, 600 100000 worth of
business with the mainland every year
are people whose business we should
make special efforts to obtain.
I am inclined to believe that the
commercial interests here have been so
absorbed in the Alaskan trade that
they neglected the Hawaiian trade
when they had an opportunity to get
into close touch with it through the
Globe Navigation Company's steamers
in 1902. In 1901 one of the agents m
the Islands for some of the Seattle
houses complained to me, after a visit
here. that his principals in Seattle paid
so little attention to his orders that
on several occasions they allowed
steamer to sail without getting their
goods on board thus causing a can
collation. of the orders, which then
went to San Francisco. This had a
bad effect on trade with this city.
Seattle is shipping some goods to the
Islands every month by the Hawaiian
American line of steamers but nothing
to what she could be shipping with a
regular line plying to and from the
Islands. In order to secure a regular
line of steamers, however. it is inpor-
tant that they shall have return car
goes and in no way can these return
cargoes be obtained so we'll as by the
establishment in this city of sugar re-
finery Such a line ought in time to be
extended on to New Zealand and Aus
tralia SO as to bring back from those
countries wool and hides and in return
supply them with their machinery and
many other manufactured products
which they now import. An investiga-
ton of the subject of trade relations
with the Hawaiian Islands is certain
ly one which the commercial bodies of
the city might we'll take up.
T. W. Thomas. a capitalist who has
recently returned from the Hawaiian
Islands, where he spent a number Of
in,