The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1918-01-08
EL|M|NATIONOF .
COFFEE GROWERS !"
SEEMSCERTA|NTY
World War Threatens To- Write
"Finis" On An industry
~ Half Century Old

ers along the Kona and windwnrd
coasts Of the Big Island, for war has
taken away the supports from under
meath a once thriving industry" writes
q correspondent from Hawaii. p.
1.-THE total Hawaiian coffee crop Is
but a drop in the bucket, counting the
huge totals in which commerce foots
up the world 3 production. Brazil, the
Central American States, and the In.
dies, East and West, compute their m.
nual production by the million bags,
while the highest total thus far pro
duced in these Islands has not in any
one year exceeded seventy thousand
bags. D.. ".
The local industry, however, Is an old
and well established one, coffee having
| figured strongly in inter.island trans.
portation for over fifty years. In the
days before the first steamers ran, cot:
fee was standard cash crop.s In the
sixties and early seventies, q bag of
coffee was worth twenty-five dollars at
any schooner landing on the Kona
coast, steer three dollars and a half
taro and sweet potatoes one dollar, and
q barrel Of oranges dollar. Coffee,
with pull, fungus and sandal wood
we're staple in those days, because these
products could be shipped abroad
whereas fresh meat. vegetables and
fruits were pefishable. .Evts&.,'..r
1.-THE industry, in a small way has
thrived, after initial setbacks. Exports
of Hawaiian coffee marched steadily
ahead, gaining thousand bags one
year and five thousand the next, until
the annual output now stands between
sixty and seventy thousand bags.
"But the industry has never beer
big enough to attract the attention of
large capital, here being at this date
perhaps only one or two ttplantations',
having over two-hundred acres Of coffee
under one management. Coffee is .
small farm crop, with many hundreds
OF tenant planters producing fifty, q
hundred or two, hundred bags Of clear
coffee from five ito ten ACRE lots. II
has been>the one minor agricnltufaT
commodity that could be called small
farm "sure thing, - but. like all things
mundane, a world catastrophe quite be-
Tond the knowledge Of these thrifty
frugal and Woodworking home maker
now threatens to- rob them Of their,
light to existeDce.a,, ..,at.i. -
The Kaiser Did 70 e.& %-ss
1.-THE Kaiser did it. There are no
pro- Germans among the formerly pros
nerous coffee planters Of Hamakua anf
the two Konas. ~ H.
Too Limited To Standardize r
"Before the war, Hawaiian coffee
had acquired a favorable reputation SO
that roasters and wholesale .grocers in
many markets had to have their qnota
of delicious Kola' to make up the
blends desired by, discriminating
trade. There has never been enough
of 1t, however, to establish this elite
demand so firmly that the trade woul
raise serious objection to,thA substi..
ton of other and similar eoffees pro
yided price differences were strongly
in favor of the substitution.
This is oneaof the things. that has
happened.2 The average coffee drinker
does not distinguish between our Ha.
waiian coffee and the product that
comes in hundred thousand bag lots
from, Costa RIGA and Guatemala, a
truth which need not be surprising
whom II is remembered that most of the
original seed planted in Hawaii came
from, Guatemala. These Central Amer.
can eoteesi arg now being offered in
the Pacific Coast markets at a cent TO
a. cent and q half per pound lower than
| 1t has cost the Hawaiian small farmer
to grow their product, and II the wal
asts, as 1t mnst. through another sea
son, cofees of all classes are bound t,
become very much lower in price. q,
Cannot Compete
Hawaiian small farmers cannot
compete with the coffee growers OF
South. and Central America. The
standards of living are different. We
are on gold basis, while our compel
titors in Latin America grow their
produce. and pay for it with silver, or
deprecated paper currency. Further
more, II would be neither patriotic MOI
| right at this time TO ask special con
sideratiOn for American grown coffees
when every citizen 3 whole endeavor
must be bent towards the winning q
the war. -.
| "The problem is a local one, serious
as it affects large number Of wage
earners and prOducefs of taxable
wealth, but a trifie Of small moment
considering the, more weighty prob
| 1852 SO''ttphbfhB thV iSuutIb Vi InS nu
ton. Suffice it to say that ways anu
means must be devised locally to hell
the Island coffee growers tide over
dangerous situation, by concerted ac
ton Of the local business organizations
Market Is Going
| Apparently, coffee is going to be
drug on the market for many years
The very fruitfulness of the trees and
the TACT that plantation win 20 Oh
bearing crop after crop under poor cul
tiVatipn, or none ut all, complexities the
outlook, for that is what Is going to
happen in countries where coffee is the
leading staple. Low prices and re.
strieted markets will be met, in Brazil
ora Costa Rica, by simply diminishing
cultivation, by harvesting only such
crops as eau be sold, and only then if
there is. an assured market for the
product. The coffee trees will live
through more neglect and abuse than
is true of almost any other crop.
t'Not only is visible production stead,
ly piling up great stocks of upsold and
unsalabh product, bnt the war is as
steadily narrowing the, market. Ten
million men have paid on European
battleaelds the supreme price of loyal
ty TO their ideals whilst to other tens