Part 36 (1/2)

The number of day laborers, 11,917, or a little over one-half of the total force engaged. The j.a.panese and South Sea Islanders are about evenly divided in their numbers as to term and day service, while Hawaiians and Portuguese show each but a small proportion of their numbers under contract. Minors are reducing in number. Women laborers, numbering 1,024 in all, show a gain of 89 over 1875. Only thirty Hawaiian females are engaged among all the plantations, and confined to one plantation each in Oahu, Kauai and Maui.

The Hawaiian Annual of 1898 makes this annotation:

During the year various changes have occurred in the labor population of the country; and under the working of the present law, requiring a proportion of other than Asiatic of all immigrant labor introduced, there has already arrived one company of Germans, comprising 115 men, 25 women and 47 children, all of whom found ready engagements with various plantations.

Chinese arrivals in 1897 to take the place of j.a.panese whose terms were expiring, will alter the proportions of these nationalities of plantation labor, and by the new law Asiatic laborers must return to their country at the expiration of their term of service, or re-engage; they cannot drift around the country, nor engage in compet.i.tion with artizans or merchants.

The islands comprising the Hawaiian territory are Hawaii, Mauai, Oaha, Kauai, Molokai, Lauai, Niihau, Kahaalawe, Lehua and Molokini, ”The Leper Prison,” and, in addition, Nihoa, or Bird Island, was taken possession of in 1822; an expedition for that purpose having been fitted out by direction of Kaahumanu, and sent thither under the charge of Captain William Sumner.

Laysan Island became Hawaiian territory May 1st, 1857, and on the 10th of the same month Lysiansky Island was added to Kamehameha's realm by Captain John Paty.

Palmyra Island was taken possession of by Captain Zenas Bent, April 15th, 1862, and proclaimed Hawaiian territory in the reign of Kamehameha IV., as per ”By Authority” notice in the ”Polynesian”

of June 21st, 1862.

Ocean Island was acquired September 20th, 1886, as per proclamation of Colonel J.M. Boyd, empowered for such service during the reign of Kalakaua.

Neeker Island was taken possession of May 27th, 1894, by Captain James A. King, on behalf of the Hawaiian Government.

French Frigate Shoal was the latest acquisition, also by Captain King, and proclaimed Hawaiian territory July 13th, 1895.

Gardener Island, Mara or Moro Reef, Pearl and Hermes Reef, Gambia Bank, and Johnston or Cornwallis Island are also claimed as Hawaiian possessions, but there is some obscurity as to the dates of acquisition, and it is of record in the Foreign Office articles of convention between Hen. Charles St. Julien, the Commissioner and Political and Commercial Agent of His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, and John Webster, Esq., the Sovereign Chief and Proprietor of the group of islands known as Stewart's Islands (situated near the Solomon Group), whereby is ceded to the Hawaiian Government--subject to ratification by the King--the islands of Ihikaiana, Te Parena, Taore, Matua Awi and Matua Ivoto, comprising said group of Stewart's Islands. But the formalities do not seem to have been perfected, so that we are not certain that the Stewart's Islands are our possessions. The latest thorough census of the Hawaiian Islands was taken in September, 1896, but the population was closely estimated July 1st, 1897.

j.a.pan- Portu- All Other Natives. Chinese. ese. guese. Foreigners. Total Population as per Census, September, 1896 39,504 21,616 24,407 15,191 8,302 109,020 Pa.s.sengers-Arrivals- Excess over departures, 4th quarter, 1896 ...... 1,377 1,673 ...... 339 3,389 Excess over departures, 6 mos. to July 1, 1897. ...... 2,908 396 58 207 3,569 ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== Total 39,504 25,901 26,476 15,249 8,848 115,978

The following denominations of Hawaiian silver were coined during the reign of Kalakaua, at the San Francisco mint, and imported for the circulating medium of the islands in 1883 and 1884. They are of the same intrinsic value as the United States silver coins and were first introduced into circulation January 14th, at the opening of the bank of Clans Spreckles & Co. in Honolulu. The amount coined was $1,000,000, divided as follows:

Hawaiian Dollars...................................$ 500,000 ” Half Dollars.............................. 350,000 ” Quarter Dollars........................... 125,000 ” Dimes..................................... 25,000

Total..............................................$ 1,000,000

Schools, Teachers and Pupils for the Year 1896.

==Teachers.== ==Pupils.== Schools. Male. Female. Total. Male. Female.

Government 132 111 169 280 5,754 4,435 Independent 63 72 130 202 1,994 1,840 ==== ==== ==== ==== ====== ====== 195 183 299 482 7,748 6,275

Nationality of Pupils Attending Schools for the Year 1896.

Nationality. Male. Female.

Hawaiian 3,048 2,432 Part-Hawaiian 1,152 1,296 American 219 198 British 105 151 German 152 136 Portuguese 2,066 1,534 Scandinavian 51 47 j.a.panese 242 155 Chinese 641 280 South Sea Islanders 15 13 Other foreigners 57 33 ===== ===== 7,748 6,275

Of the j.a.panese, 8.5 per cent. were born on the islands; of the Chinese, percentage born here, 10.3. Of a total of 41,711 j.a.panese and Chinese, 36,121 are males and 5,590 females. The figures show that the Asiatics are not at home.

The sugar industry in our new possessions has had great prominence agriculturally. The sugar interest of these islands has had a formidable influence in the United States. Recent events and the ascertained certainties of the future show that the people of the United States will soon raise their sugar supply on their own territory. The annexation of these sugar islands was antagonized because there was involved the labor contract system. As a matter of course, the United States will not change the labor laws of the nation to suit the sugar planters of Hawaii, who have been obtaining cheap labor through a system of Asiatic servitude. There is but one solution--labor will be better compensated in Hawaii than it has been, and yet white men will not be largely employed in the cultivation of sugar cane in our tropical islands. The beet sugar industry is another matter. There will be an end of the peculiar inst.i.tution that has had strength in our new possessions, that brings, under contract, to Hawaii a ma.s.s of forty thousand Chinese and j.a.panese men, and turns over the majority of them to the plantations, whose profits have displayed an unwholesome aggrandizement. Once it was said cotton could not be grown in the cotton belt of our country without slave labor, but the latter trouble is, the cotton producers claim, there is too much of their product raised. A ten-million bale crop depresses the market. Already experiments have been tried successfully to pay labor in the sugar fields by the tons of cane delivered at the mills for grinding. This is an incident full of auspicious significance. A general feeling is expressed in the current saying that coffee raising is ”the coming industry.” The confidence that there is prosperity in coffee amounts to enthusiasm. Here are some of the statistics of coffee growers, showing number of trees and area, trees newly planted and trees in bearing:

No. of Trees or Area.

Newly 1 to 3 Trees in Planted. year old. Bearing.

J. C. Lenhart, Kaupo 2,000 trs. 4,000 trs. ....

Mokulau Coffee Co., Kaupo 2,000 trs. 10,000 trs. 2 acres E. E. Paxton, Kaupo 5,000 trs. 7,000 trs. ....

Native Patches throughout Kaupo 10 acres .... ....