became more plentiful with the great influx of Japanese, and because an invasion of the leaf-hopper made cultivation contracts so precarious for the laborers that they refused to take them.

The decrease in the number of adult male field workers shown in these tables has been accompanied by an increase in the amount of sugar made. The figures are as follows:

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES AND OF ADULT MALE FIELD HANDS AND TOTAL AND AVERAGE AMOUNT OF SUGAR MADE, 1902, 1905, AND 1910.

Allowing for slight errors in these figures, due to possible differences in the classification of occupations in different years, the tendency to displace unspecialized field labor with specialized and more productive labor of another class is very evident. It is the outcome to be expected when more expensive free labor is substituted for cheap contract labor. Two modifications in field methods account for no small part of this change-less cane is stripped than formerly, as stripping is no longer profitable at present wages; and cane is in many districts burned before cutting, with a saving of labor in its subsequent handling. Even with rising wages these economies of operation have probably lessened considerably the labor cost of making sugar, and they represent a tendency likely to continue for some time to come.

SUPERVISION OF FIELD WORK.

The immediate supervision and control of field operations is intrusted to overseers, locally known by the Hawaiian term "lunas," who officer the laborers. One or more head overseers, under the direction and in consultation with the manager, distribute work to the different gangs, and assign men to their places and occupations for the day or week. Under these are subordinate overseers, who direct the labor of one or more gangs of men in the field. A competent “luna" can manage about 50 field hands. The character of the overseer under whom he works has much to do with the comfort and contentment of the laborer. Some lunas are brutal and overbearing, and until laws and regulations and the greater scarcity of labor prevented, were prone to use physical violence and unjust fines in dealing with their men. Others, even under the old contract system, had the faculty of securing obedience and good service by humane measures. The relations of overseers and laborers are probably now

better than ever before, and the irritable and violent overseer is disappearing, if not because he is disliked, because he is no longer profitable.

The salaries of overseers and field bosses, like day wages, are increasing. This is in spite of the fact that Portuguese, PartHawaiians, and in some instances orientals, have now qualified themselves for such positions. These men are willing to serve for a lower salary, and perhaps get along with workers of their own nationality better than would a white man. But the latter inference is not always true. Some laborers are inclined to be jealous of the promotion of their own countrymen, and to resent being bossed by them. Among the Japanese this spirit is said to be caused by the fact that the men promoted originally belonged to the laboring class, not because they are Japanese. Such laborers would willingly accept orders from a Japanese of the educated or ruling class. Added to this is perhaps a feeling that the solidarity of the Japanese in Hawaii as representing labor interests should not be broken by the desertion of their number to the employer's side.

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The average wages of overseers and foremen employed on Hawaiian sugar plantations in 1902, 1905, and 1910, respectively, and the proportion belonging to each race, are shown in the following table:

NUMBER, PER CENT, AND AVERAGE MONTHLY SALARY OF OVERSEERS AND FOREMEN ON HAWAIIAN SUGAR PLANTATIONS, 1902, 1905, AND 1910, BY RACE.

WAGES OF SKILLED PLANTATION LABOR.

The mechanics employed on a plantation include blacksmiths, carpenters, and other trade workers, together with their helpers receiving more than the field rate. Where men are rated as mechanics' helpers on plantation pay rolls at a wage not exceeding $20 for 26 days' work, it is safe to assume, for statistical purposes, that they are common laborers detailed to carry materials or otherwise to assist skilled men in an unskilled capacity. Mechanical employments also include engineers, oilers, and firemen in mills, at pumps, and on locomotives and steam plows. To simplify classification, this group of occupations also includes sugar boilers,

assistant sugar boilers, chemists, and assistant chemists. But it does not include chemists' helpers, who are usually laboratory servants performing janitor work. The variation in average pay and in race of these employees, on all Hawaiian plantations, in 1902, 1905, and 1910, respectively, is shown in the following table:

NUMBER, PER CENT, AVERAGE DAILY WAGE OF SKILLED HANDS ON HAWAIIAN SUGAR PLANTATIONS, 1902, 1905, AND 1910, BY RACE.

This table shows that in skilled occupations the proportion of orientals has risen and the average rate of wages has fallen during the past five years. The latter is contrary to what has occurred. in other classes of plantation work, as shown in the two preceding tables. The increasing employment of orientals in skilled positions has not only lowered the average wage of all workers of this class, but also the average wage of each non-Asiatic race considered separately.

The following table shows the trend of average wages on a plantation where citizen labor is being substituted for orientals in skilled positions, as rapidly as the latter leave. This table shows a decrease in the average wage of Hawaiians and Portuguese, due to the promotion of field hands to the lower paid branches of skilled work. For identical occupations, however, this table would show the same advance in wages as is shown in the average wage of other Caucasians.

NUMBER, PER CENT, AND AVERAGE DAILY WAGE OF SKILLED HANDS ON A HAWAIIAN SUGAR PLANTATION WHERE CITIZEN LABOR IS BEING SUBSTITUTED FOR ORIENTAL IN SKILLED POSITIONS, 1908 TO 1910, BY RACE.

It would cost the Hawaiian plantations about $210,000 per annum, or in the neighborhood of 40 cents per ton of sugar, to replace all the orientals now employed in skilled positions with Hawaiians, Portuguese, and other Europeans, at an average wage of $1.50 per day, and such a transfer of labor would add about 1,500 males, or say 7,000 persons, to the citizen population of the plantations.

An advantage that the Hawaiian plantation worker in most capacities has over many classes of workmen in the mainland is that there is practically no unemployment. The plantation force does not change materially in numbers throughout the year, the variation between the heaviest and the dullest season averaging less than 4 per cent. Such variation as exists is not a forced one, but is due largely to the employment of school children during vacations, in addition to the regular force, to cut seed and to plant cane. These are light occupations. One manager of a comparatively small plantation said, when his place was visited, that in 1909 he had planted 230 acres with the help of school children alone.

PLANTATION STORES.

Some plantations supply free medical attendance and hospital privileges to their employees. In 1910 the plantation managers agreed to adopt the policy of selling the necessaries of life for cost at the plantation stores. About one-third of the plantations maintain such stores, though in many of these cases there are private stores competing for the laborers' patronage with those run by the plantations. Employees are usually paid by the month and in cash. The truck system does not exist-or if there are reported traces of it in the attitude of a few plantation managers toward laborers' store accounts it affects the general welfare of Hawaiian working people very slightly.

The following table shows the earnings, store accounts, and cash balances paid the Portuguese laborers upon an Oahu plantation for three months in 1910 and the average monthly earnings of each family. The single men having very low store accounts were mostly boarders living with other families, and families having store accounts nearly equal to their entire earnings in several instances took in boarders. Some families-as, for instance, No. 1-purchased most of their supplies in Honolulu, but other families for the most part traded entirely at the plantation store, as in this particular case there were no other stores in the immediate vicinity.

The table indicates that where several members of a family are working it is not difficult for the head of the family to save from his earnings. Where a man has a large family of young children not old enough for field work, his earnings are not adequate in Hawaii to rear and educate them properly and allow any margin for saving, and in some instances even the most frugal laborers probably find it

difficult to make both ends meet. Where two adults are reported as working in one family, one is the wife, and the earnings of this member of the family are usually small and irregular. On the other hand, a few of the minors earn nearly as much as their parents.

EARNINGS AND STORE ACCOUNTS OF PORTUGUESE EMPLOYEES AT KAHUKU PLANTATION, JULY TO SEPTEMBER, 1910.

1 "Homesteader," i. e., is acquiring title to a homestead (house and acre lot), which becomes his property after three years' service without cost.

Part of this amount is a bonus for regular work.

3 This man keeps boarders, and his store account is therefore larger than it otherwise would be. "Cultivating contractor," i. e., the sum pald this man represents only an advance made him while raising a crop, and possibly his wages as day hand when not employed in his field. His earnings should include part of the profit from the crop he is raising, which will not be paid him until the crop is harvested. This man is partly a pensioner of the plantation and receives other aid from the manager than the money here stated.