The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1910-11-29
RHODES WRITES
FROM A DISTANCE

The following appears in the Chi
cago Daily News, dated Honolulu, Oc-
tober % and signed Charles L.
Rhodes:"
One of the bitterest political cam
paigns ever carried on in Hawaii is
drawing to a close. For almost the
first time the plantation interests are
encountering really strong and ag-
gressive public sentiment. Natural
ly a good deal of heat is engendered
and bitter and offensive personalities
have become the distinguished char
actertistic Of the campaign.
The policy and practice of assisted
immigration of laborers for the plan
tations, which has peen almost con-
tinuous and not substantially opposed
for fifty years, is being vigorously at
tackled. The plantation interests are
making a determined resistance in
their power to oppose the attack.
Evasion of Federal Law.
The point of attack is an act of the
Hawaiian legislature passed at the last
session imposing a special tax on all
incomes above $4,000, the proceeds
going into a fund to be used by the
territorial board of immigration to
bring immigrants eligible to become
citizens" to Hawa i. The act itself
is, in fact, device to get around the
federal statute prohibiting contract or
assisted immigration by individuals,
firms or corporations.
When the territorial board of immi-
grafton was created it was authorized
to use any funds that might be contri-
buted to it to bring immigrants eligi-
BILE to become citizens into the terri
tory. The sugar plantations at once
contributed several hundred thousand
dollars, and two or three shiploads of
Spaniards and Portuguese were
brought to Hawaii. The attorney gen.
eral of the United States ruled, in a
similar case, that this was prohibited
by the federal statute, and the legisla-
ture of Hawaii passed the act now in
force.
The law was based on the theory
that every income in the territory of
Hawaii of $4,000 or over was received
principally from the sugar industry,
and hence that special tax on such
incomes would touch only the sugar
industry, which had paid the assisted
immigration bills before, and was the
industry that wanted the assisted i'm.
migration. To make the idea of as.
sisted immigration palatable it was
urged that by bringing in white immi.
grants the islands would be saved to
American civilization.
Russians Brought In.
The strike of the Japanese planta
ton laborers for higher wages in 1903
delayed the introduction of assisted
white laborers, but plans were made
and the importation of Russian labor
ers from Siberia began early this year.
The eyes of the planters and of the
board of immigration were directed to
Siberian Russia as a source of supply
by the representations of a Russian
visitor to Hawaii, and the observations
of two or three sugar planters who
visited Siberia. Several thousand Rus
slams were brought to Honolulu, but
from the first there was difficulty with
them. They claimed that misrepresen-
tations had been made to them as to
wages and housing and other condi-
tons of life. Many of them refused
to go to the plantations at all and
longer than was necessary for them to
earn enough money to pay steerage
fare to California.
The experience with these Russians
aroused opposition at first to them and
then to the whole scheme and theory
of assisted immigration. SO complete
was the revulsion of public sentiment
that a few months ago it seemed as
though public opinion was almost una
nimous in the proposal to continue the
special tax on incomes of $4,000 and
over, but to divert it from assisting
immigration to public improvements,
schools, and the conservation of the
natural resources of the islands. The
planters however, determined to re-
sist any such change. The planters
easily secured plank in the platform
of the Republican party favorihg the
continuance of the assisted immigra-
ton policy. The Democratic party de-
clared against the immigration policy
and favored the diversion of the re-
venue from the special income tax to
schools, roads and conservation of ma
tural resources.
The planters through the Republi-
can orators and newspapers have ar
gued that unless white laborers were
hrOuUht IN tho farritnrU IN hacOma