The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-02-14
NEW YORK SUN
ON LANAI DEAL


HDNoLJLl REtAkDlNG lib
PURPOSES AND OBJECTS or II
The following is from the New York
Sun of January 80.
HONOLULU, January 16-TerritoriL
Senator McCandless is making an eff
fort in the Hawaiian courts, with tho
further recourse of am appeal to the
Federal judiciary, to prevent the sale
of Lanai one Of the eight islands Of
the Hawaiian group To- a private indi-
vidual named Gay, a British subject.
The proposed sale, which is being fur
thered by Governor Carter, is disguised
as an exchange of properties, various
lots in the city of Honolulu being Of
fered for the island in lieu of cash. If
the deal is made, whatever the form Of
consideration may be, a valuable part
Of the public domain, capable Of even
tual settlement by the substantial
middle class" which President Roose-
welt wishes to establish in the feudal
environment of Hawaii, will have been
lost forever
Lanai is the island fifth i'm size of
those which constitute the group. It
has an area of 1876 square miles About
10000 acres of this constitute the Ter
ritorial interest. the rest having been
sold to another British subject, w G.
Irwin, a partner of Claus Spreckels.
Irwin will sell to Gay and Gay will
buy if he can put through his deal
o with the Territory. Both men say that
e. Lanai is so deficient in water and her
= bage that it could be of no value to
?. settlers save at a vast outlay for re-
d forestration and the impoundmg Of
. rain in some of the gulches. Gay, it
appears, if the island be given to him
in fee simple, would undertake to save
it. He says that unless he gets the
property it's dry soil will literally blow
away in the trade winds, leaving moth
ing but the underpinning of rocks.
So eager is he to secure this Dalren
principality that he has appealed for
the help of native Hawaiians to silence
opposition, saying that his chief desire,
as owner of Lanai, would be to restore
= the aboriginal customs there. He would
put natives on the island, encourage
them to live in grass houses, to go
without the white mans clothes and,
/ ny hftDllE III lbuNIl Win Id lure. lIN ~
- regain the vitality which they have
= lost in contact with the pale-face.
7 Back of all this however, is supposed
to be a baronial cattle scheme.
1t is this reactionary spirit that the
" progressive people of Hawaii are fight
n ing, with some verbal encouragement
&, from Governor Carter But the Gov
. ernor cannot get away from the feudal
- environment in which he was born and
e reared. His large fortune is chiefly in
n vested in sugar and his basic attitude
2. toward the small land seeker is very
|. much what that of a Southern planter
n Governor before the war must have
:. been toward an ambitious poor white
I. who wanted to take up a farm near
n an unfriendly cotton estate carter
r. prefers 10 do what the planter rather
}. than the settler thinks desirable Next
z. to the planter he ranks the cattle
baron.
n The attitude is surprising when it is
e seen that the soil a farmer would want
- for his specialized tropical agriculture
5. is mostly above the sugar zone and
= would not trench upon it in the least;
t but any planter will tell you that the
LAI luti ny RAISING lut price u ldllu
- leases above the nominal figure which
:, the sugar men pay and by drawing on
e the coolie labor supply might so unset
s tie the conditions which exist as to
II make it impossible for the large pro-
k prietor to keep up his average scale of
: profits. And then there is a natural
h desire TO let well enough alone.
I'VE planters and graziers have made
t Hawaii what it is and thrived nightly
y ourselves" they say. why should we
y let strangers come in to disturb the old
order We can afford to buy what we
d don't raise in the markets of the world.
e We control the agriculture, the politics
e and the government of the Territory.
e We are satisfied and do not court trou-
Il bic with outsiders"
y Meanwhile, in vast, smiling. fertile
7" vacancy lies land which, according to
Jared G. Smith, director of the United
> States agricultural experiment station
% at Honolulu, would support 100000
p farmers engaged in raising rubber, to-
q bacco, coffee, sisal bananas, cassava
and vanilla and the staple food prod
= ucts native to the north temperate
10 zone
H., n .sO"u4y Pai' Oh llliS vacant lanu IL
= included in the limits of Kauai, the
" fourth island Of the archipelago chain,
beautiful billy country of 544 square
- miles. In poetry Kauai is called "the
garden island in prose THE closed
island" and closed it is to everything
typicaly American. 1t is owned and
- controlled by four old time families,
:. but one of American extraction-the
- WilcoNes, Robinsons, Rices and Gays,
~ the latter including the Gay who wants
to get the whole island of Lanai. These
families are chiefly in sugar, but their
enterprises support no other whites