The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-01-14
JARED SMITH ON FUTURE
Of THE SUGAR
INDUSTRY
Continued from Page -

| ten acres support more cattle than {
hundred acres did before. In every in
stance where great estates in passing
are succeeded by increase in the mum.
Der of land owners, it means a genera
prosperity and increase of individual
! wealth.
What Hawaii needs most of all is
not a greater volume of trade with the
mainland and foreign countries, but q
greater volume of trade here at home
To secure this we must have a marked
increase in the white population.
The question narrows down to this:
| Do we want white farmers and me-
chanics or do we not want them. To
set the advantages of the farmer
against the mechanic or vice versa is
to beg the question. If any consider
able number of white farmers and me-
chanics gain a foothold in Hawaii the
end of the plantation system will sure
ly follow.
When cane or rarch lands now I'M
der lease at merely nominal rentals are
offered at public auction as the leases
expire the present lessees Gin many
instances corporations or estates) will
run the chance either of having to pay
much larger rentals or some farmer
may bid in the land and the present
lessee may lose it. If there were ten
thousand white farmers and mechan-
les in Hawaii instead of a few hum
dred, as today, there would be more
Il
I do not believe that there would nee
essarily follow any material reduction
in the output of sugar.
The white man has acquired the
habit of thinking for himself. The
racial inferiority of the black, brown
and yellow man is due, not to his col
or, but to his acquired habit of letting
other people think for him. The la
boring classes of any country are IT'S
chief source of wealth. The savings
of the laborer constitute capital for the
development of new resources. The
volume of the daily expenditures of the
laborer controls the volume of trade
among the merchants. The Asiatic la
borer contributes his savings to the de-
velopment of the land from which he
came He does not insist upon the
right to own land here because he ex-
poets to return to his native country
as soon as he has acquired a COM
potency.
The white man, be he mechanic or
farmer, expects to own his home and
prefers to work for himself Any white
man who remains in Hawaii three
years would rather live here than
anywhere else in the world. provided
he can buy land for a home, and ii
he can get land he will stay. A rented
house in an acre of leased land is not
the home in which the average white
man hopes to spend his declining years.
Is Hawaii to be operated simply as
a cold bIooded business proposition?
Is the cheap production of sugar to be
the end and aim of our social and poll
teal life? Sugar can be produced more
cheaply in Cuba than in Hawaii, not
because of the abundance of cheap la
Dor in Cuba but because cane land can
be bought. for five dollars an acre,
cleared and planted for a comparative
ly small sum and the cane harvested in
a shorter season. Less cultivation is
required, no irrigation or fertilization,
and the fields may be ratooned for ten
or twenty years, These facts may all
be readily verified, but the men who
make money out of sugar in Cuba do
not live there and do not want to. They
reside in New York, or Paris or Lon
don. The land is hot, malarial an
healthy and unsafe. The planter that
makes money out of cheap sugar in
Cuba wants to live somewhere else.
In Hawaii it is different. The land
is fair to look upon, the climate better
than anywhere else in the world. Every
white man who stays in Hawaii twelve
months Will ever after long to return,
if he goes away. The climate is rot
tropical although the whole group lies
within the tropic zone. Every natural
and climatic condition is in favor of
the health and comfort of the white
race. Hawaii is a good land to live
in. When the people on the mainland
discover what superior advantages Ia
wall has in the matter of climate they
Will come here not only to visit but to
make their homes, and we cannot keep
them out.
Thus, although Cuba may be able 10
grow cheaper sugar Hawaii has actual,
material advantages that discount the
formers two million ton sugar crop.
Sugar cane viii continue to grow in
Hawaii even though ten thousand
white farmers and mechanics come to
live in the islands. When we acquire
a stronger white population the whole
community viii benefit in every way.
Who is there that wants to 80 on
record as an advocate of the theory
that the American is a failure" in
Hawaii?
The racial solidity of the Japanese
is such that when the numbers of Ha-
waiian-born men of that nationality
outnumber the Caucasian and Hawai-
ian voters they can dictate legislation
to suit their own ideas and ideals We
already have some six hundred voters
of Chinese and Japanese parentage.
Japan is world power standing on
absolutely an equal footing with any
other nation. BY treaty and tradition
her citizens must receive equal priv
ileges and equal protection with citi-