The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-12-02

Ray Stannard Bakers second ar
ticle, in the December American
Magazine, on Wonderful Hawaii, a
World Experiment Station" is en-
titled The Land and the Landless. "
Its opening instances are the follow
ing
A plea of an orphan to a court al
ways awakens ready interest. 1t sug.
gests distress and a story of sorro ".
While | was in Hawaii an orphan
named Mary Beatrice Campbell, about
sixteen years old, appealed to the
courts for relief. The girls mother
was native Hawaiian woman. and
her father was James Campbell, q
shrewd ScOtchman. Both were dead.
Mary Beatrice came into court in toe
person of her guardian and asked that
her present allowance" which lis
entirely inadequate and out of proper
ton with her reasonable needs be
increased.
1t seems that the Scotch Hawaiian
girl mad been receiving for her sup.
port the sum OF 5000 mont. OF
1920 year This, her guardian
declared in legal English, to be wholly
inadequate to her support, and he
asked that it be increased to $1,000
a month, or $4,000 year. And this
was not all. He declared that it was
now necessary that Mary Beatrice
should complete her education by AN
extended trip through foreign 20 IN.
tries" accompanied by a suitable in
structor and companion" For the
purpose of this trip he asked an aJdi-
t;oDal allowance of $4,000.
am relating this little incident be-
cause it gives flash-light glimpse of
a bit of present-day Hawaiian life.
Where was all this money coming
from? Who earned it? Who worked
for it?
OF course all wealth traces back
to the land. If you Cwn or control
the land of a country, YOU can make
all the other people work for you,
either directly or indirectly. If YOU
own the land you can control the ma.
chinery, the transportation appliances
and the labor supply.
Originally all the land in Hawaii
belonged to the natives-at first to
the native kings and afterwards,
through a method of distribution de-
vised and inspired by the old mission
aries, a considerable part of it was
divided among the people-a fishing
place on the shore, taro patch on
the lowland, and a pasture or wood
land in the mountains higher up.
If there is one lesson that the
Anglo-SaXon has learned it is that
land-control is the key to power And
it was not long before white men be-
gan, in one way or another, to acquire
the lands of the Hawaiians. Having
acquired the lands it was not long be-
fore the Hawaiians, or such of them
as were now landless, began to work
more or less constantly for the white
man. BY this means the white man
developed, gradually, the high degree
of control of the islands, which, as
81, ho avnPpigg,
Let me show how all this worked
out in the case of the Scotchman
James Campbell, the father of Mary
Beatrice, In an early day he married
Hawaiian woman, and acquired by
trade and purchase an enormous tract
of land along the shore of the Island
of Oahu. The land at that time mad
comparative little value. BY and by a
shrewd promoter came to the islands
and wanted to build little railroad
outward from Honolulu. / can give
only the barest skeleton of compli
Gated story, but the promoter finally
leased the land from Campbell, the
Scotchman, for $4,000 year for fifty
years. Everyone thought at the time
that he was crazy, but he started in
to build his road and to encourage the
development OF the land that lay
along it.
One OF the plantations now using
the land is called Ewa-and it bears
the reputation of being the most
profitable one, considering the actual
money invested, of any in the islands
Eva plantation alone, and it is only
a part of the Campbell lands, has paid
the railroad company over $50, )0C
rental in a single year.
This shows why and how Mary Be
atrice can ask for $4,000 a year tc
. live on
All of these profits, of course, grow
directly out of the hard toll undeI
tropical conditions OF a large number
of japanese, Chinese, Portuguese
Spanish, Filipino, Porto Rican anC
. nthar workers who live on a very