Hawaii Past and Present, Page 5

The Hawaiian Islands are industrially a busy and progressive place, and, unlike other tropical countries, physical activity is not limited to the dark-skinned races. The climate is such that Caucasians can not only work in the open but, for the sake of health, need vigorous out-door exercise. The result is that agricultural opportunities are limited only by the extent of available land. The variety of crops that can be raised, moreover, is almost endless, ranging from the fully tropical near the seashore to crops of the temperate zone on the higher levels.

Only one industry has so far been developed to its full capacity. All the large tracts of land suitable to the raising of sugar-cane are already taken up by the plantations. The only increase in production can be through the growing of cane on small parcels of land by individuals who will sell what they raise to the plantations to be ground at the mills. There was sugar-cane on the Islands when they were discovered. The first exportation of sugar was made as far back as 1837. A man who visited one of these primitive sugar mills has described the curious granite rollers used to extract the juice, and the crude iron pans used as boilers, adding, as something hard to believe, that one mill was able to produce as many as 300 pounds of sugar in a day. The great impetus to sugar production was given by the Reciprocity Treaty of 1878, which insured a market, and since then the industry has steadily grown, until in 1912 the fifty-six plantations produced 566,821 tons, valued at $45,345,680, this being an increase in the ten years since annexation of 200,000 tons. The value of incorporated and private sugar property is about $70,000,000. Over 200,000 acres of land, about half of which has been reclaimed, are devoted to the growing of cane. Artificial irrigation of this formerly arid land is carried on by means of extensive series of artesian wells, from which water is pumped to the higher fields, and by great mountain reservoirs, from which ditches distribute water over thousands of acres. An immense amount of fertiliser is used annually, and the plantations devote large sums to scientific study of soils and to improvement by hybridisation of the different varieties of cane. Indeed, the scientific precision with which the industry is conducted, the perfection of the machinery, the success in adapting different kinds of cane to different soils, and in raising those soils economically to their highest producing power, should be a lesson to agriculturists the world over.

On the large plantations the soil is ploughed to a depth of about three feet and the cane is planted in rows about eight feet apart; on irrigated land the distance is less. The first crop is ready for the mill in about eighteen months, is followed by a rattoon crop in fourteen months, and by another rattoon crop about eighteen months later. The third rattoon crop is not profitable, so the land is usually allowed to rest until a new planting is made. As no proper harvesting machinery has been invented to cut the cane, which grows in tangled masses, it is cut by hand and sent to the mill on cars, or, where water is plenty and the slope of the land sufficient, in flumes. It has been found best to burn the fields before harvesting, as the value of the small amount of juice lost is incommensurate with the great expense of stripping the cane. At the mill the cane is passed through three sets of rollers, which so thoroughly extract the juice that the refuse or bagasse is immediately fed into the boiler furnaces. The juice goes first into the boilers, from them into the settling tanks and into the evaporator, which may have a capacity of 1,500 tons of juice per twenty-four hours. From the evaporator, which has reduced it seventy-five per cent in volume, the juice is sent to the vacuum pans on the upper floor of the mill. Under these are the crystallisers, and lastly the sugar is sent for drying to the centrifugals. As it drops out of these it is shovelled into bags and is ready for shipment.

Sugar cane in flower; will be ripe and ready to grind in from six to eight weeks

The whole process, which is intensely interesting, can most easily be seen in one of the great mills near Honolulu, that of Ewa, Oahu, or the Honolulu Plantation, the latter being the only plantation which refines its own sugar. These three plantations, which are among the most progressive in the Islands, produced, respectively, in the last year for which there are figures, 31,000, 33,000, and 17,000 tons. The average yield per acre on Ewa plantation has run as high as eight tons and a single acre has produced eleven tons. This is the more remarkable when one realises that the average yield throughout the Islands is a little over four tons, being 6.44 tons on irrigated land and 3.69 on unirrigated land, and that the average yield of the plantations in Cuba is only a little over two tons. The largest plantation in the Islands, and indeed in the world, is the Hawaiian Commercial on Maui, which produces between 50,000 and 60,000 tons a year. The plantations along the coast of Hawaii and on Kauai are, with one or two exceptions, comparatively small, although they are often as prosperous and as progressive as any.

The great problem of the sugar planters is labour, which must be cheap and to produce the best results ought to be stationary. The plantations have suffered immeasurably through the exclusion of the Chinese, an exclusion which here loses its point, since they do not, as labourers, compete with the whites. The Japanese are excitable and restless. The Hawaiians and the Portuguese are far too few to supply the demand. Field labourers get from $18 to $25 a month in addition to comfortable houses. The planters are testing also various co-operative schemes, as well as a sliding scale of wages, the amount increasing according to the length of time during which the labourer has worked for the plantation. Profits are large, few of the plantations being over-capitalised, but they are by no means extravagant, as they occasionally were in the early days of the industry, and a serious increase in the cost of production could be borne by very few plantations. The abolition of the duty on raw sugar would permit most of them to continue with greatly reduced profits, whereas it would probably kill the sugar industry of the Southern States, benefiting only the Sugar Trust, the sole business of which is refining.

Among other Island industries the cultivation of rice, carried on almost exclusively by Orientals and according to Chinese methods, is almost as old as sugar and long held second place. Some 12,000 acres are devoted to this industry, and even under the primitive methods employed the profits are large. Japanese rice is still imported, but probably would not be were modern machinery used in the cleaning and polishing of the homegrown crop. As it is, water-buffaloes, strong, patient, deformed-looking creatures, do most of the work, not only in the fields but in threshing the grain. Picturesque they certainly are, but it is equally certain that they are neither as thorough nor as clean as is modern machinery.

The commercial cultivation of pineapples is an industry of comparatively recent introduction, although pineapples for table use have been grown for many years. For its best development the fruit requires an elevation of from 500 to 1,200 feet and a rainfall of 35 inches or over. The plants are set out in numbers varying from 2,500 to 12,000 to the acre, according to the size of fruit desired. The first crop, of about 10 tons to the acre, matures in from eighteen months to two years, and a rattoon crop of from 15 to 18 tons is harvested a year later. A second rattoon crop is not, as in the case of sugar cane, profitable, so the fields must be then reset. About 6,000 acres of land are now devoted to the cultivation of pineapples, and in 1912 approximately 1,000,- 000 cases of two dozen two-pound cans were ex ported, worth about $3.50 per case—this in addition to fresh fruit and to bottles of pineapple juice. There are several canneries in the Islands, that in Honolulu being the largest in the world, so the fruit is sent away ready for the market, which is still by no means satisfied.* Hawaiian pineapples, both raw and canned, are said to have the finest flavour of any grown. With the canneries at hand the fruit has now a definite market value, and the time has gone by when a passenger on an inter-island steamer could buy from the canoes surrounding the ship at some port of call a hundred delicious little pineapples for the extravagant sum of one dollar.

*A drummer told me that he had distributed a dozen cans of Hawaiian pineapple in Minnesota in 1909; that in 1910 he had orders for two dozen cases; and in 1911 for thirty carloads.

These three are the principal agricultural industries of the Islands, with sugar, of course, far in the lead—too extravagantly in the lead, perhaps, for a really safe financial situation. In calm weather a ship does well enough with one anchor, but in a storm it is more prudent to have several to windward. At present sugar is the Hawaiian anchor, and in comparison to it all the other industries are but larger or smaller fish-hooks attached to slender cords. It is very satisfactory, therefore, to note the growing interest in other agricultural ventures. For example, there are now about 3,000 acres in sisal, with an annual output of several hundred tons of fibre. That this will in time become an important industry is almost certain, since there are in the Islands large tracts of arid land where sisal, which requires only two inches of rain a year, will grow, and where little else can ever be cultivated. The Hawaiian fibre is of the highest quality and is much preferred in the San Francisco market to that coming from Mexico, where ninety-eight per cent of the sisal used in the United States is at present grown. Another promising experiment is the cultivation of rubber, but, whereas the first returns from sisal come in three years, rubber trees do not begin to pay until the eighth year. This, of course, necessitates a large initial outlay and means that the money will for a long time be unproductive. There are, however, some 1,500 acres planted in rubber, and prospective rubber growers have been encouraged by the discovery that it is possible, while the trees are young, to get small immediate returns by intercropping, that is, by planting some quickly maturing crop such as soy beans between the rows of trees. Another young industry is the cultivation of tobacco, of which the finest grades can be grown successfully and economically. There are, at the lowest estimate, some 30,000 acres of soil excellent for tobacco culture, and with intelligent management the industry should be one of real importance. Coffee has been raised since 1817, but at present the low wholesale price has cut down the profits to a minimum and has discouraged the starting of new plantations. Hawaiian coffee, especially that grown in Kona, is, however, of such delicious flavour that if a co-operative association could be formed properly to introduce it into the United States there is no reason why it should not again become one of the most attractive and well-paying industries.* Bananas grow wild all through the Islands and are also extensively cultivated for export. The banana fruits about a year and a half after planting, and the tree is then cut down to give room for the suckers which spring from the roots. From 800 to 900 bunches per acre is the usual crop. Some fifty varieties are grown at various altitudes. Many of them are, so far, unknown commercially—especially is this true of the cooking varieties, which are even better than those eaten raw. If a market were created for these new kinds of banana they could be raised very profitably and in quantities limited only by the amount of suitable land. Other crops which have been planted to some extent and have grown well and which, therefore, seem to offer good opportunities to intelligent farmers are cotton, producing here a more valuable and finer lint than any grown in the Southern States; cassava, Manila hemp, citrus fruits, vanilla beans, which flourish in very wet regions; corn, and forage plants. Full development of all these agricultural possibilities would be of inestimable benefit to the Islands and would be also excellent investments to those who carried them through.

* A New York dealer said not long ago that if the Hawaiian coffee agents, instead of being modest about it, had called it by some fancy name and insisted that it was of fancy grade, they could have got high prices and sold all the Islands could raise.

The ranching business, almost entirely in the hands of Americans, uses as grazing lands some 160,000 acres. So far these ranches have supplied the home demand for beef, but the demand is increasing rapidly and to keep up with it the ranchers will have to raise large quantities of forage plants to supply the cattle in time of drought, since the natural grazing lands will not support many more. This is, of course, recognised, and the ranchers prefer to plant extensively rather than to lose control of the market. Sheep are raised, but not yet in sufficient quantities to meet the demand for home consumption of mutton. Nor up to now has enough attention been paid to selection of breeds which will produce the finest quality of wool. Much work is at last being done along this line, and the wool exported in the future ought to be far above the standard of that exported in the past. No hogs were imported during 1911, enough, for the first time, being raised to supply the home demand. Both horses and mules are imported annually as draught animals, although the Island ranches should, and probably eventually will, furnish all that are needed. Poultry raising is carried on to some extent, but quantities of chickens and eggs are brought from the mainland. Poultry diseases are troublesome here as elsewhere, but are no more troublesome nor harder to deal with. It would certainly seem, therefore, that there is an excellent opportunity for a few men who are experts in the business.

The vital need of the Islands is to insure settlement on a satisfactory basis of the labour problem, and the only proper settlement would seem to be the creation of a class of independent small farmers. The time of unrestricted Oriental immigration is over. More and more the balance must turn in favour of the Caucasian labourers, who are brought in large numbers annually, at great expense to the Territory and the planters, from southern Europe. These men bring their families. They cannot be expected, and ought not to be expected, to hoe cane all their lives. Their ambition to become independent land-owners, to have their own little farms and orchards, which they can cultivate and leave to their children, ought to be realised within the Territory. So far as land is concerned, there is no difficulty, but these men do not want land unless it can be proved to them that small farming is profitable. For this reason efforts are being made to test all kinds of crops, to establish a central marketing agency for the small farmers, and when these experiments are completed, when it can be demonstrated that this kind of farming is feasible and profitable as well in Hawaii as on the mainland, then, it is hoped, the plantation labourers will work to earn enough money to buy an upland farm, not tickets to San Francisco. They and their children will come down to the cane fields to work in harvesting the crop, just as the similar class of small farmer works in the harvesting season in California. In this way only will the problem of labourers for the plantations be permanently simplified, and at the same time the Territory will have gained a steady and reliable rural population.

Manufacturing, aside from the manufacturing processes connected with the production of sugar and with the canning of fruit, can never be of great importance. This is inevitable owing to the distance of the Islands from world markets, and still more to the absence of coal and of minerals. Only one company, the Honolulu Iron Works, has, in the face of these obstacles, worked itself into a position of prime importance. This company has a large plant and manufactures all the machinery for the sugar mills and pumping stations, except, of course, those parts controlled elsewhere by patent. Indeed, so well known is it for its accurate and excellent work that it ships sugar machinery to the Orient and even to Cuba. This success, however, is an exception, brought about by demands arising from special local conditions, and does not affect the truth of the statement that general manufacturing would be unprofitable.

In public service corporations the Islands can take their place with any advanced community. Honolulu has an unusually well-equipped and well conducted electric car service, with twenty-four miles of track. The cars serve all parts of the city, are of the most modern make, and are thoroughly comfortable. A franchise for an electric line for the town of Hilo has lately been granted.

The steam railroads in the Islands are capitalised at about $7,500,000 and have about 220 miles in operation. The Oahu Railway and Land Company has a hundred miles of track, including the main line and branches, and is connected on the north side of the Island with twelve miles of the Koolau Railway. The Oahu Railway Company has excellent terminal facilities and docks and offers good passenger and freight service. On Maui, the Kahului Railroad Company operates some sixteen miles of track, which connects, however, with 125 miles of plantation track. On Hawaii the Hilo Railroad Company has built some 50 miles of road and is rapidly extending its lines in all directions from Hilo. The line northward along the coast, which is extremely difficult to build on account of the deep gulches, will eventually carry all the sugar of the district to Hilo for transportation, thus doing away with the many dangerous plantation landings where the sugar is now lowered over the cliffs into small boats or run on cables to the steamers. These lines are mainly for the transportation of freight, but their passenger service is also good, and they make easy of access some of the best scenery in the Territory.

Honolulu was one of the first cities anywhere to have a general telephone service. The company has now taken over also the management of interisland wireless telegraphy. All important centres are equipped with electric lights, and the capital is also supplied with gas. In so far, therefore, as modern conveniences are concerned, the Islands are quite on a par with the mainland.

Water transportation facilities are continually increasing. The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company has a fleet of seventeen steamers, which call at all ports in the Territory. During the year 1911 they carried 64,108 passengers and 409,714 tons of freight. The steamers are small, but three of them, the Maunakea, the Maunaloa, and the Kilauea, have accommodations for a hundred passengers and are as well fitted up and as comfortable as any boats of corresponding size. This company controls nearly all of the interisland traffic. There are local lines, with boats plying between the mainland and the Hawaiian Islands, which operate their steamers mainly for freight transportation. One of these lines, the Matson Navigation Company, has excellent passenger accommodations on three of its larger steamers, and the Oceanic Steamship Company has one passenger steamer on a regular tri-weekly schedule between Honolulu and San Francisco. Honolulu is also a port of call for various through lines of steamers, which, however, owing to United States navigation laws governing the coastwise service, can carry neither passengers nor freight to or from the Islands except on payment of a heavy fine. These laws do not apply, fortunately, to the steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which is an American line running between San Francisco and the Orient, nor do they apply to the steamers of the Canadian- Australian Steamship Company, which, taking passengers and freight to Vancouver, is not acting as a carrier between two American ports. So far as freight is concerned, these laws are no particular hardship, but they are a serious inconvenience to the passenger traffic, which is larger than can be handled with comfort by American ships. A suspension of the law relating to the carrying of passengers would not be a hardship to American companies and would be, for the Territory, relief from a special burden. It would seem only fair, moreover, since the possibility of outlying Territories was not considered when the laws were enacted. With the opening of the Panama Canal the shipping of the Islands must enormously increase. Honolulu will inevitably become a great commercial centre, since, being the only available port of call in the North Pacific, it will do an immense business in trans-shipment of freight. As a shipping centre, indeed, it has grown in importance for several years. The tonnage entered in 1901 was 952,504; in 1911 it was 1,343,876, excluding the United States transport service, which is very large. There is every reason to believe that with the opening of the Canal the amount will be immediately doubled or trebled. Steamers from Panama will call at Honolulu for coal and other supplies, and to meet this demand the traffic with California will be much larger.

As a mercantile centre, therefore, the future of Honolulu seems as sure as does the agricultural future of the group. It means a busy port, a meeting ground for the ships and people of all nations, less of the calm always associated with the tropics, more dirt and confusion, but with these disadvantages it means more colour, more of the cosmopolitan life that is so attractive to the onlooker.