The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1905-12-05

terday'a advlces IN regard 10 the wheat
outlook IN Argentina ana India or
snow storm IN the winter wheat belt
Of Kansas
No country dependent upon other
countries Tor its food supply can ever
attain that economic stability requisite
TO the building up OF seli-sufiicient
commonwealth. No country can stand
upon one leg without danger OF over
throwai by very slight displacement
OF the center OF gravity.
Agriculture has been variously de-
fined. At first II was the cultivation
OF the fields or OF the soil. modern
scientists say II Is the cultivation and
care OF plants to supply. mans necessi-
ties; but politically, agriculture is
something more, for mans necessities
are not simply bounded by hunger and
thirst or the desire to be clothed. The
field OF agriculture has broadened so
that States now consider the means
employed In production equally with
the quality of the product and its
cost.
Rich lands do not of themselves,
make q rich country, 50 that the pos
session of extensive areas OF rich land
by State is CT less Importance than
that the land, whether rich or poor.
should be well populated. Land cap
able of growing large crops may be
absolutely valueless because the con-
ditions of government are such that
civilized population can not exist.
Take a map of the world and one can
see that there are on every continent
millions of acres of tillable lands alb
solutely untouched, immense areas al
most unpeopled. Nations as well as
| individuals may be land-poor through
the possession of rich and well water
ed areas. Men are worth more than
acres.
Hawaii Is an integral part of the
United States. Potentially 1t stands
as the western outpost for the defense
of the Pacific coast. But until Hawaii
is peopled with a citizen population it
would cost more to defend than would
all the rest of our western coastline.
AS long as its citizens are few in num-
ber Hawaii would be more of a mem
ace than a protection TO the mainland
| in time of war. A large garrison would
have to be fed and would require large
naval defenses to keep open the lines
|
starving out of the defenders. But
establish in Hawaii hundred thou
sand white farmers and these islands
will become actually what they are
now only in a theoretical sense, the
western outpost and first line of de-
! tense, a country which could not be
starved out by simply cutting off or
destroying transpacific communication
1t seems to me that we should look
conditions squarely in the face. Ha-
wall is weak because of the poverty
of four-fifths of her present population,
who have absolutely no resources: on
an average hardly enough accumulated
wealth to tide over a weeks enforced
idleness. Such utter dependence of a
weak race on a strong one does not
tend towards economic or political
stability. Substitute men who cul-
tivate and live upon their own lands
and while the initial cost of production
of raw materials may increase to the
detriment of some mems fortunes. the
wealth and political health of the whole
body polite will become immeasur-
ably greater.
What Hawaii needs most of all is
not an abundance of cheap laborers,
who. through racial incapacity and
stress of daily necessities lend them
selves to the indefinite supremacy of
a particular industry or system, but a
race of men who have faith in both
the present and future of these is
lands. Citizens who viii constitute the
support of the State in times of peace
and its defence in periods of danger
are worth more to Hawaii and to the
United States and constitute a greater
endowment, than a million acres of
government land leased in large areas.
United States Judge Dole arose as
soon as the paper was finished and said
he wished to most heartily endorse the
remarks of the writer of the paper.
He suggested that the paper should be
printed to be appreciated. Secretary
Wood of the Promotion Committee
spoke along the same line. w. w. Hall
moved that the paper be given to the
daily press with the request that It be
printed, which motion was seconded
and unanimously carried.
The Institute then adjourned.