The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-11-23
KAPAA LAND
SETTLEMENT
An Earnest Conference
.--Portuguese Want
Best Land.

, Earnest negotiations have been il
progress for some days between tn
Government and the Makee Suga
Company regarding the settlement o
the Kappa lands. To a variety of de
tails more or less hard to adjust a new
! difficulty has been created by th'
Portuguese applicants for homestead:
in claiming something better than the
I1olokans were offered.
| J. w. Pratt, Commissioner of Public
| Lands thus far represents the Terri
torial administration in the conference
George H. Fairchild, the company s
manager, and r. w. Breckons, it's at
torney, have jointly and severally been
holding interviews with the Commits
sioner, some of them hours In dura-
ton.
| AS was made public at the time of
| the Molokan incident old leases OF
public lands to the Makee Sugar Com
| pany are verging on expiration. Ac-
| cording to the Organic Act no lease
! of agricultural land shall be granted,
sold, or renewed by the Government of
| the Territory of Hawaii for a longer
period than five years until Congress
shall otherwise direct"
| Another provision of the Organic Act
| is that mo corporation, domestic or
| foreign, shall acquire and hold real es-
tate in Hawaii in excess of one thou
sand acres" an exception being made
of vested rights existing at the passage
of the Act.
Now the leaseholds of public lands
of the Makee Sugar Co, whose terms
are expiring, comprise about 5000 acres
roughly, 1000 acres agricultural land
and 1000 acres pastoral and waste lands.
AS is well known the Government is
pursuing a policy of settling labor upon
the public lands. To this end, it is uti-
lizing the fact of expirat1ons of leases
to plantations. occurring from time to
time, to have agricultural lands under
sugar cane cultivation-the most profit
able use in sight therefor-continued in
such tillage and this by laboring people
settled thereon.
1t is with all these facts in view that
the Government and the Makee Sugar
Co. are trying to arrive at an under
standing. Unless the company can
control the land. or have assurance of
settled slabor upon it adequate to cultf-
vate and harvest another crop after
the blowing for such crop which ought
very soon to be done. At the same
time, the Government would probably
find it difficult if not impossible, fully
to settle the land within the time re-
quired. !,
On its part, the Government is de-
sirous of preserving the Kappa plan
tation without interruption of its OPP
erations or impairment of it's produc
tivity.
On the part of the company, there is
an assured desire to cooperate fully
with the Governments policy of labor
settlement
Commissioner Pratt and Attorney
Breckons, when interviewed separately
by an Advertiser reporter, have each
frankly expressed confidence in the sin
certify of the party represented by the
ether, as to the respective attitudes Of
the parties which have just been men
toned
eve are entirely in harmony with
the settlement policy of the Govern
ment," Mr.. Breckons said yesterday.
There is no difficulty on that score,
but there are many details of figuring
which have TO be worked out. The
company will do everything in its
power to facilitate the settling of the
lands by the Government-that is,
whatever may not be inconsistent with
the company's vital interests
Mr.. Pratt. when Mr.. Fairchild had
left the land office after 4 p. m, stated
that one of the difficulties which had
cropped I'D was due to claims being
made by Portuguese who had applied
for homesteads on the Kappa lands.
You know that the appraisement of
the lands made for the Molokans-
something like $3.50 an acre-was upon
good, bad and Indifferent land" Mr..
Pratt said. With portions of agri-
cultural land the Molokans were to get
swamp and waste lands as they lay in
the allotments
Now the Portuguese claim the right
to go into the heart of the cultivated
cane land and pick out homesteads at
the same price as that for which the
intended allotments to the Molokans
We're appraised.
1T will be necessary for me to make
a trip to Kappa and endeavor to
straighten out this difficulty with the
Portuguese. I shall go over there early
in December