is supplies on credit, and is
charged one per cent. a month on these, compounded every three months
until it is paid, and pays almost as much freight on his sugar from the
plantation to Honolulu as from there to its final market--it is highly
probable that he will, in the course of time, fail.

There are not many legitimate enterprises in the world which would bear
such charges and leave a profit to the manager. But it is on this system
that the planting of sugar has been, to a large extent, carried on for
years in the Islands. Under it a good deal of money has been made, but not
by the planters. Nor is this essentially unjust. In the majority of cases,
planters began rashly with small means, and had to borrow largely to
complete their enterprises and get to work. The capitalist of course took
a part of the profits as interest. But the capitalist was in many
cases also the agent and store-keeper in Honolulu; and he shaved off
percentages--all in the way of business--until the planter was really
no more than the foreman of his agent and creditor. When, under such
circumstances, a planter complained that he did not make the fortune he
anticipated, and reasoned that therefore sugar planting in the Islands is
unprofitable, he seemed to me to speak beside the question--for his agent
and creditor, his employer in fact, made no complaint: _he_ always made
money; and as he had invested the money to carry on the enterprise, this
was but the natural result.

The planters make a grave mistake in not acting together and advising
together on their most important interests. There are so few of them that
it should be easy to unite; and yet for lack of concerted action they
suffer important abuses to go on. For instance, it is a serious loss
to the planter that when he ships or engages a hand he must pay a large
"advance," amounting usually to at least half a year's pay. This custom is
hurtful to the laborer, who wastes it, and it inflicts a serious loss
upon the planter. Suppose he employs a hundred men, and pays fifty dollars
advance, he invests at once five thousand dollars for which he gets no
interest, though if, as is probable, he borrowed it, he must pay one
per cent. a month. This abuse could be abolished in a day by the simple
announcement that no planter would hereafter pay more than ten dollars
advance. But it has gone on for years, and the sum paid gets higher every
year merely by the planters outbidding each other.

Agai