330 
HAWAII. 
[a statement prepared for presentation at the conference 
of the governors.] 
By Hon. Walter F. Frear, Governor of Hawaii. 
Even the most far reaching problems may often be illumined 
and sometimes solved by observation or experiment upon a small 
scale. The laboratory, by its processes of bringing forces into 
clear relations, may in a moment disclose principles that centuries 
of national or world-wide experience have left unsuspected. Lit- 
tle, distant Hawaii, now an integral part of the Union as a full- 
fledged Territory, has been, ever since the beginning of Christian 
civilization there less than a century ago, a veritable laboratory 
of industrial as well as sociological experimentation under condi- 
tions that have seemed almost artificial in the clearness of the 
relations of the operative forces. It may be that she can shed 
light, at least by way of illustration, upon some of the needs, 
methods, and means involved in the all-important national ques- 
tions presented to the Conference. 
I will present but two points. The first is the marvelous results 
of the application of science to agriculture. That has been in 
large measure the making of Hawaii industrially. 
That Territory is a group of lofty islands of recent volcanic 
origin, within the tropics, remote from the world's markets. 
Practically without mineral resources, she is dependent mainly 
upon her soils ; but, although nearly as large as Connecticut and 
Rhode Island combined, so much of her area is so high or so 
precipitous or so recently formed or so dry or otherwise unsuited 
to marketable crops that only a very small percentage can be 
classed as arable in its natural condition and in the present state of 
knowledge. Obviously, if she is to support a large population, 
science must do what nature has left undone, and accordingly 
perhaps nowhere else is science now being more resorted to for 
agricultural purposes, and vet only a beginning has been made. 
The limited extent of arable public land in Hawa'i — and com- 
paratively speaking now on the mainland — calls for the greatest 
care in its disposition. Adequate precautions should be taken to 
insure its disposition in general only to bona fide settlers and in 
not larger quantities to each than can be put to best ase : and until 
a superior use can be found for the large areas still held as public 
iand for which no such use is known at present, they should in 
general be retained or disposed of only temporarily by lease or 
otherwise, until a superior use is discovered for them. Hawaii's 
experience in earlier liberal disposition of the lands and later dis- 
coveries of superior uses emphasizes the need of such precautions. 
Until a few years ago attention in Hawaii was directed almost 
exclusively to the production of cane sugar, which, in spite of 
various adverse natural conditions, has been brought by the appli- 
