CHAPTER III. 



THE HAWAIIAN IMPOSITION. 



Not content with securing the annexation of the Sandwich Islands under false pre- 

 tenses, the coterie of cane sugar planters who control Hawaii now seek further special 

 advantages at the expense of the American people and of the domestic taxpayer. 



I use the term "false pretenses" advisedly. It was persistently represented by the 

 Hawaiian sugar monopoly that no further increase in the production of sugar was pos- 

 sible in those islands. So adroitly was this point argued, that even the Honorable 

 Secretary of Agriculture was led to indorse it, and it was then believed by every Senator 

 and Representative who finally voted for annexation under the stress of war, which was 

 also unduly magnified. 



IT WAS ALSO FALSELY REPRESENTED 



that, though sugar cane had of late years been grown only by coolie labor under con- 

 tract, the planters would abolish the contract or slave system if the islands were 

 annexed, and would hold themselves amenable to the labor laws of the United States. 

 To give color to this claim, a bill to prohibit importation of coolies was before the 

 Hawaiian legislature in the spring of 1898. It was defeated, of course, as it was meant 

 to be. The facts in the case were succinctly set forth in the San Francisco Chronicle 

 tor April 2, 1898, as follows: 



CONTRACT LAW THEIR SALVATION PLANTERS SAY ITS ABOLISHMENT WOULD MEAN 



THEIR RUIN. 



HONOLULU, March 24. The sugar planters are up in arms against a bill now 

 pending in the Legislature providing tor the abolishment of the labor contract system 

 now in vogue, by which a laborer who deserts from a plantation can be arrested and 

 thrown into jail until he is willing to return to his work and have all costs of his capture 

 and detention assessed against him. The planters say that under the present condition 

 the abolishment of the penal contract law would mean the utter ruin of every plantation 

 on the islands. At a meeting of a committee representing the Planters' Association and 

 the House Committee, to which the bill was referred, such men as John H. Hackfield, 

 W. G. Irwin, F. M. Swansey, C. Bolte and H. Renjes were present, and all expressed the 

 opinion that the passage of the bill would deal a death blow to the sugar industry. 



The planters explained that the laborers brought to Hawaii are picked from the 

 lowest classes in Japan. It is necessary to advance from $130 to $150 to each laborer 

 to get him here. If, when he arrives he cannot be held to his contract, the plantation 

 not only loses the man, but the money invested in him. 



The new ruling of the Cabinet regarding the employment of European labor, the 

 planters said, would secure immigration of white labor that, in a few years, would 

 entirely replace the Asiatics on the plantations. 



This proposition to abolish the coolie system was therefore a false representation 

 for political effect upon Congress and the American people. At the very time it was 

 being advanced at Washington, the Honolulu government was granting special licenses 

 to the planters to import Japanese and Chinese coolies under contract. The new ruling, 

 to encourage European labor, was another false representation, at least in effect, as 



