Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 276, 9 September 1891 — INDIAN COOLIES VERSUS RICE GROWING. [ARTICLE]

INDIAN COOLIES VERSUS RICE GROWING.

From an interview pnblished by a San Francisco sheet and reproduced here by the Planters' newspapers, we gather that the Hon. Marsden, who was~feent to India by! the Planters, as a recruiting agent! for eheap labor, is couaing back with the idea that he has at last fouiad the solutioc to tbe problem of plantation workmen who will practloally cost zK)thing. His solutiort is by importing some of the poor Indoos v who are famishing through the fact tbat their country is overstocked with population. Mr.' '\MarsdeH says that he is eonfidont that the Indoo Jaborer will not cost the pls?hter6 here more than 25 cents per day; in other wo]*ds, as they are starving in their! own country, they may just as well i starve here for the benefit of the sarctimohious planter. Tbe reason given by Air. Marsden for hoping that the Indian Ccolie will thrive here on a quarter a day, is ' because in India they maoage to livo on only a few anas, —sav 5 »to 10 cents, — but the Honoluiu recruiting agent. whohas never in his life tried to live « n 25 cents a day. for|»et that prices for all neeessities of Life are proportibnately cheaper, nc<s esj)ecially, being three to four' times cheaper than it is here, Now, for tho p!anters to be able to feed thtsir eooiiee on 25 cents a day, they mirst lvave at their disposal eheaper £rice than that grown here. He nee their intention of asking the next *Legislature to suppress all duties on foreign rice. With rice |»mported free of daty from India, ion the samo vessele that would bring thc coolios, it might be possipl(! for them to give- their poor slavo<? just enougli to keep them aiiw, and thereby increase thoir dividends by wliateVelr they could sa\'e on the famishing laborer. But this speculating on the stomach and Bweat of their eheap labor, would also mean the ruin of the rico tn<lmtry. now flounshing in th is Kingdu:u It true that rice here is grown mainly by chinese, butthe lands they cultivate for that crop. belongs mainly to native Hawaiiaua, who live on the rental thcv reoeive from those lands. Kill rho ?hinese rice growers aml vou will at onee kiil the native oWner of the l*nd, but people who koow the historv of tand-

grabbing in this Paradise of tbe Pacific—a paradise for the missionary sugar grower—may be excused to think that such an extreme result may not be distasteful to some sugar growers. who might thereby anticipate mort lands to lay their hands on. . Fortunately for the countrv, fortanately for the rice-growsrs and their native landiords, the proposel immigratioa of Indian eoolie scannot be inaugurated before the government has mad,e a snecial treaty to that effect with the British Government, and we are decidedly of the opinion that a Hawaiian Legislature will ever be found willing to approve such a treaty, T one whieh would be viewed with great displeasure by our best fricnd, the Amenean Government, and whieh would really be onlv the means of perpetuating the worst kind of slavery on thrse islands.