The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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Mr. A. Has 100 Mules, But The Greater Part Of
Their Work Is Ploughing And Hauling The Kegs Of Sugar Down To The
Cove, Where In Favourable Weather They Are Put On Board Of A
Schooner For Honolulu.
This plantation employs 185 hands, native
and Chinese, and turns out 600 tons of sugar a year.
The natives
are much liked as labourers, being docile and on the whole willing;
but native labour is hard to get, as the natives do not like to work
for a term unless obliged, and a pernicious system of "advances" is
practised. The labourers hire themselves to the planters, in the
case of natives usually for a year, by a contract which has to be
signed before a notary public. The wages are about eight dollars a
month with food, or eleven dollars without food, and the planters
supply houses and medical attendance. The Chinese are imported as
coolies, and usually contract to work for five years. As a matter
of policy no less than of humanity the "hands" are well treated; for
if a single instance of injustice were perpetrated on a plantation
the factory might stand still the next year, for hardly a native
would contract to serve again.
The Chinese are quiet and industrious, but smoke opium, and are much
addicted to gaming. Many of them save money, and, when their turn
of service is over, set up stores, or grow vegetables for money.
Each man employed has his horse, and on Saturday the hands form
quite a cavalcade.
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