The Hawaiian gazette., 1912-11-19


OF courac this would be the case in
every tropical climate. Where the
necessities of the natives do not dc.
al nlch. the nat YES re orjinar
~ Disposed to do as little work as
,rac icab'c Ia fnci, there is no par
icular need Of thor wording az hard
nd as earnestly as we do In the more
ten uerate climates, and it seems
folly for our American invetors to 90
INTO the pop'cs and buy lands and
-tnrt rp IRE sugar industries without
seriously onsider M the labor stu
7tion and recognizing 5he fact that
native tropical labor@s don't want to
work except NJ to secure just enough
money TO crafty their simplest wants.
They can live so eheaply that nothing
else can be expected from them AMI
t Is not fair to blame these people for
lack Of enterprise with which they
are so frequently charged.
Labor as Political Factor
In Australia ard in Cuba the labor
question is gradually becoming an
active factor in the political develop
ment Of those countries and it re-
mains to be seen how it will be finally
settled. SO far as Cuba is concerned,
we here are profoundly interested in
the labor question there, and we are
led to believe that gear by year the
labor question will become more and
more serious to our adventurous Amer
leans who are engaging so largely IN
the sugar industry ont there.
We have one satisfaction to contem-
plate, however, and that is that our
American mechanics, engineers and ma
| chinery builders are thoroughly cogni-
zant of all these troubles in the labor
market and they are constantly making
efforts to bring out new machinery that
will diminish the actual manual labor
now required in ordinary sugar produc-
ton We are promised cane cutting
machines one of these days. Cane cut
ting with machinery is perhaps the
most difficult problem that we have to
solve in connection with the sugar in
dustry. and that it will be solved one
of these days seems almost an assured
fact. The railways and tramways seem
to have settled the transportation ques.
ton, carrying the canes from the cane
fields to the sugar factories.
1t was but few years ago that it
would have been thought impossible to
handle about the factories the immense
quantities of sugar cane that are now
handled, and yet we find that here in
Louisiana and out in Porto Rico some
of our factories are now handling from
$500 to 5000 tons of cane per day. 1t
4 is only a generation ago when the Hon
orable Duncan F. Kenner, then the dean
of the sugar industry in Louisiana
10 Of Ii ~ iola OF hic
home on the lower coast, coming, as he
said, to see how any sugar factory
could handle three hundred tons Of cane
per day. He had always thought il
impossible, and believed it then to be
!, impossible, but he came, he saw, and
was convinced. What would he say
: now if he could go to the great Re
: serve plantation on the upper coast and
} see from 2500 to $500 tons of cane pei
, day arriving at that great sugar fac
tory and being consumed
Solution Is Machinery.
The question of human labor and tn,
growing disposition of all laborers tt
, prefer to handle machinery and hav,
the machinery at work, rather than Il
do the physical labor themselves, il
constantly increasing. On the othe
hand, however, the recent adaptation
[ of gasoline to so many new phases o
/ modern industry, the division of powe
into small parts, as it can now be don
with electric motors, and the natura
aptitude of Americans in the lines o
ingenious labor-saving devices, are al
, as strong now as ever they Were, ant
. we believe that cane sugar will holt
oytr,, ~ ba u,1nnr yrOrl1 IN nnmTnti