The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-17
EARMING AND IMMIGRATION.

making inquiries for year and more
about land, climate and products. I'm
doubtedIy there is a strong conserva-
tive influence in the islands working
against any change, however slight,
from the system of baronial estates in
habited by serfs and making returns TO
! stockholders. This was indicated in a
recent interview with Hon. w. G.. Irwin
in which he said:
Il have lived in Hawaii for fifty
years and know something of the coun-
try Frequently I have been asked if
it offers good inducements for people
who would like to migrate there with
a view of making permanent homes.
It is not easy to give direct answer.
The agricultural labor will, in my opin-
| ion, always be done by Asiatics, for
| the reason that the climate is too warm
and enervating for men of the white
race and, aside from agriculture,
there is not much to be done, except
perhaps a. limited amount of cattle
and sheep breeding. So, on the whole,
the islands are not inviting from the
immigration standpoint. but they form
a most beautiful and picturesque part
of creation, and no one who ever has
time to pay a visit there ever regrets
the trip"
This is very mild way of putting
the conservative side of the argument,
but two impressions are left in the mind
of the enquiring farmer, namely, that
the climate would not be good for him
and that he would find agriculture in
the hands of Asiatics. Against the first
postulate one may urge that white |
farmers do well in hotter places, like
the interior valleys of California; and !
against the second, that the best kinds !
of small farming here have not yet been |
anybody's hands. They await the.com- |
ing of intelligent white men who, no
doubt, would make the same use of the /
cheap labor on the ground that the
fruit-pickers of Santa Clara county do,
and with it's aid create or extend new
and feasible lines of industry such as
the cultivation of sisaI tobacco, coffee,
vanilla, export fruits, bananas, pine
apples. rubber, castor beans, etc.
Mr.. Walter NJ. Giffard, second vice
president of VIM. G. Irwin & Co, Ltd,
a man of great intelligence and local
is performing mastery
work in showing the adaptation of Ha-
waii to other commodities than sugar.
The books in the land department of
the Territorial government prove the
existence of a large number of acres on
he various islands that could be profit
ably applied to diversified farming. In j
reference to the use of white labor on
The plantations, Mr.. Twins view is
probably correct, and resident Ameri-
nave long since advocated, under rea- j
;onable precautions, the introduction of
600 Chinese for the benefit of the
eane fields. But the reason for this
necessity is chiefly the indisposition of ,
white or Hawaiian laborers to enter
ntO competition with Asiatics in this
branch of industry. The climate has
something, but not everything, to do :
md Sacramento valleys in California {
he heat is-far greater, and, making
Ill possible allowance for the difference ::
n moisture and the comparative cool '
Of r
tive than in Hawaii; and there, during {
he summer as well as in the winter 1
months, whites are constantly employ :
ID, though even there the encroach- /
n some measure are encouraged. In
he Sacramento valley, in June, July
md August, the thermometer often
anges, in the middle of the day, from
10 degrees to 112 degrees Fahrenheit
n the shade, and 80 degrees is not I'M
Ommon at three o'clock in the morning.
Those who have watched day after
lay, for a week or more at a time for
he cooling south wind will appreciate
he intense oppression, though unac-
Ompanied by sunstroke, through which
hey have passed. In the San Joaquin
ALLEY, especially in its southern parts,
'emoved from the sea, the summer heat
5 even greater. In portions of Arizona
he thermometer attains a still higher
range. AT this time of the year, in
New York, in Chicago, in Philadelphia,
N st. Louis and in Washington,
throughout many of the northern and
middle states, as we'll as in the fields of
the southern states, the heat oppres-
sion far transcends any Honolulu ex-
perience.
The fact is that, owing to the trade
winds and the mountain ranges, Ha-
wall, though within the tropics and
famed for tropical productions, does