[To TIM EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOIL1 SIR, —The Hawaiian Islands
may give Dr. Richard Arthur some material that will be of use in his study of the possibility of permanently settling Anglo-Saxons as tillers of the soil in tropical lands. Like all Polynesian peoples, the native Hawaiians, after half a century of contact with the more sturdy white men, began steadily to decrease, so that almost from the start—about the middle of the last century—the sugar industry of the Hawaiian Group was forced to look to immigration to supply the field hands it required. There have since followed sixty years of very interesting experiments in immigration, no expense having been spared in seeking suitable material in all parts of the world. In this way the population of the islands has received an admixture of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Portuguese, with smaller num hers of Indians, South Sea Islanders, negroes, Spaniards, Italians,
Russians, Americans, British, Germans, till the native Hawaiians—though they have now about begun to hold their own again in numbers—form not over twenty per cent. of the total population.
It is only natural, in view of the relative positions of Asia and Europe to Hawaii, that the Asiatics should greatly out- number all other races. Nevertheless the Portuguese from the Azores and Madeira form quite a large section, and they have become a permanent and successful element in the com- munity. All these peoples came immediately under an advanced and compulsory school system, whereby they were instructed in the English language, and they became qualified to work with their heads rather than with their hands. The result is that comparatively few of the second generation even of the Asiatics are to be found working in the fields. The Japanese and the Chinese children usually become clerks and shop- keepers. The Portuguese turn into artisans and navvies, though large numbers of them are to be found as teamsters on the plantations, or even in the cane-harvesting gangs, but seldom amongst the cultivators. Very few native Hawaiians take employment on the plantations. Latterly, since the Hawaiian Islands became a part of the United States, great pressure has been brought to hear by Government to prevent Asiatic immigration and to foster that from Europe, with the result that in the past three years Russians have been added to the list of human experiments going on in this little laboratory of Hawaii.
Dr. Arthur will be most interested in the Portuguese and Russians. The rest of the Europeans—the British, Americans, and Germans—never took any share in manual field work.
With them it was not a physical question but one of caste. And of this Dr. Arthur may be very sure : no Anglo-Saxon will consent to work with his hands at any task which is also
engaged in by a race supposedly or actually inferior. The Portuguese and the Russians also have proved themselves to
be perfectly able to do a good day's work in the sun. There is here no difficulty on the score of race; and so far as the Portuguese are concerned the second generation is equally virile. As for the Russians, they have not been there long enough for a second generation to prove itself. But a great many of these people, both old and young, are lost by emigra- tion. This is a difficulty which will also be met in developing the Northern Territory of Australia. It will be difficult to prevent a steady drift of the settlers to the more attractive centres of the large Southern towns. The same trouble is
experienced in Hawaii. There is a constant stream of these Europeans to the mainland of California, where they can
enjoy the excitements of city life, and—if the unions would only permit them to be employed—they could earn attrac- tive wages in various trades. It can hardly be different in Australia. New settlers must constantly be brought in to replace those who give up. Even in the United States it is always the immigrant who tills the land, for the native-born finds less arduous work. Until America and Australia have increased their Anglo-Saxon populations to something like the proportions found in Europe, it does not seem as though the second generation can be induced to let us see bow well they are fitted for manual work in the tropical sun of Hawaii and the Northern Territory of Australia.
It would be interesting to obtain statistics from other tropical countries as to the effect of the unbroken residence of generations of white people in the tropics. It has often been asserted that in Hawaii the result has been to raise the percentage of mentally deficient above the normal. It is well known that this is a danger Europeans must guard against in
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