Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1909-04-07
WHITE E8REMEN IN SUGAR
FIELDS.


The labor problem, as regards the
sugar industry, seems to be solved as
far rs Queensland Is concerned.
Northern Australia is much hotter
and more tropical country than Ha-
wait; still, after the deportation of
the South Sea Islanders. the last of
whom left Queensland some time ago,
rush of good, Woodworking white
labor has set in, and the supply is
ample at present. White cane-cut-
ters are earning from SIS. to S20.50
per week, and that is good pay for a
laborer in Australia. This the plant
crs are able to pay on account Of the
bonus paid by the Government on
sugar produced by white labor.
Shearers, of course, earn more, but
,ey have to travel from one sheep
,tation to another, and they are not
'ery long in the one place. On the
other hand. cane-cutters are at the
5ame place for the whole season, and
when the crop is harvested tackle
the other plantation Jobs.
The Town and Country Journal"
than which there is not q more re-
liable paper in Australia, gives n
very good review of the labor situa-
ton that is of vast interest to Ha-
wall, where the sugar industry must
employ steadily increasing force
of citizen labor.
There Is a charm about the plant
er's life that reminds one of the
pleasures of fruit culture on an irri-
cation colony" says the Journal.
Cane culture has It's drawbacks. One
runs risks with regard TO labor This,
however, Is an old trouble that is
gradually disappearing. though the
bogcy Is raised by self-de,uded alarm
lists producing saaIe from time TO
time.
1t has been said FROM the begin
ming that white men cannot work in
the sweltering heat OF a cane field,
and no distinction was made be-
tween Southern and Northern
Queensland. This affirmation crys-
talised into n dogma, and was I'M
consciously adopted as an article of
faith. But, in the fulness of time,
discredit was cast upon this creed by
experience and II was admitted that
/ ~ tfa Gtu hA hant md
burden of the day oultiyating or cut
ting cane.
1T was then said, white labor is
unreliable, and fails in performance
of its promises at the critical moment
when so much depends on It's stabil-
ity.' However, no argument based
on practice or theory could stem the
tide, and the deportation of the
South Sea islander came. 1t was in
eyitable as things stood. Planters,
nevertheless, hoped against hope,
The passage was q painful one, and
opening the recording angels book
at this chapter one will imagine he
is reading the Book OF Lamentations
The mountains groaned, not in pangs
} of birth, but in fear of death. II
seemed like the end of all things, fol-
the planter, who, at that stage, could
not see-or be expected to see-thaI
: 1t was, after all, not the beginning
: of the end, but the commencement o
a new era, cast in different mould
and that things being at their ap
. parent worst would begin to mend b!
virtue Of the inherent properties pos
sessed by circumstances in finding
satisfactory solution for the ills tn
world Is heir to. The 5000 Soutl
Sea boys went in dribs and drabs un
I'll the last of the Mohicans' (shippe,
some time ago, were returned to tn
, enchanted isles Of the South Pacific
Nature abhors vacuum an,
I that created by the repatriation o
the South Sea islander Is being file,
: with rather fine type of Australian
workman, many of whom hate tn
I white 'waster' possibly more thai
/ they would have hated the Polyne
t sian had they known him by contact