16 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



From the foregoing, observe that Japanese furnished a little over one-half the 

 sugar labor, Chinese about one-third, balance Portuguese one-sixth, with Hawaiians, 

 South Sea Islanders and a few other nationalities. 



AN UN-AMERICAN OLIGARCHY. 



Even the San Francisco journal that ordinarily favored annexation, cannot stand 

 this, but says: 



"But the planters, having got used to coolies, want to keep them. That 

 is natural enough, but it is not a consideration that appeals to people over here. Nor 

 will Americans sympathize with their aspiration to maintain Hawaii as a rich man's 

 paradise. The manner in which this is done is to use coolies, not merely in the cane 

 fields, but in the trades and small retail enterprises to crowd out white men who might, 

 if permitted to stay, outvote the sugar party in the affairs of the islands, secure the gov- 

 ernment, amend the labor laws, impose a fair rate of taxation upon the sugar estates 

 and throw open the public domain. 



"In their opposing attitude the Hawaiian planters resemble their prototypes, the 

 slave-holding aristocracy of the south. They have no use for "poor white trash." Given 

 their baronial acres, tilled by coolies and just enough white men to do their police work 

 for them, and they are content. So long as the coolies are in hand they can keep the 

 obstreperous and independent white at a distance. If he comes as a laborer he is con- 

 fronted with a glutted muscle market; if he comes as an artisan, a skilled Japanese is 

 set up in the same business to underbid him; if he wants to be a merchant, an Asiatic 

 with planter backing drives him away. This is the Hawaiian fashion of managing 

 things, but it is not American style, and we do not believe that Congress will engraft it 

 upon the American system. 



"The planters can till their fields with white labor under the profit-dividing sys- 

 tem now being tried near Honolulu and still make fortunes. They can also do it by 

 employing white farm hands directly, and for the general good of Hawaii they should 

 be compelled to take some such course by the passage of laws discriminating against 

 Asiatic labor in favor of the kind employed in this country. Otherwise Hawaii will be 

 an anachronism in the American form of government." 



Certainly, with all its advantages, natural and artificial, there is no special cir- 

 cumstance to justify Congress in perpetuating the contract-labor system on Hawaii. 



