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inhabitants of Porto Rico and the whites and the negro popula- 
tion of the South and of the Italians and Portuguese can not be 
promoted if the large holdings of land are to be continued. 
It is, perhaps, essential that these large holdings should be per- 
mitted for the purpose of development, that is to say, it may be a 
wise thing to permit a corporation to hold a large tract of land 
with a view to its development by irrigation works and the con- 
struction of a sugar factory and the construction of a railway sys- 
tem for transportation, but when this is accomplished the policy 
of the State should be to compel the partitioning of this area into 
convenient tracts, with water rights attached; the waterworks, 
the sugar factory, and the railroad to be charged with a public 
use and their rates regulated by law, either through a commis- 
sioner or the courts.   Such enterprises are to-day conducted all 
through the arid West and in California.   Large areas of land are 
taken up, irrigation works constructed, and when completed the 
lands are divided into small tracts of from 20 to 40 acres, with 
water rights attached, and the land sold to small holders whose 
rights to the water are protected by law.   Such a system could be 
inaugurated in Hawaii, but it must be compulsory, for the profits 
of sugar production are so large there as to appeal to the selfish- 
ness of monopolies and trusts. 
The question is, how can this be done without violently wrench- 
ing the business as now conducted?   No one, of course, wishes to 
accomplish reform at the expense of a temporary industrial read- 
justment which will bring distress or loss to that community, and 
it is for this reason that I have urged throughout, in the considera- 
tion of this bill, amendments which would call the attention both 
of the governing body in Hawaii and the governing body here to 
the desired reforms, and which would result in the collection of 
accurate statistical information that would be a guide to future 
action both there and here.   I have been as anxious that the in- 
telligent thought of Hawaii should be stimulated to action upon 
this matter as well as our own, for the reason that I fear when 
this organic act is passed our attention will be so much absorbed 
in other questions of domestic and foreign relations that the Ha- 
waiian Islands will drift from our consideration, and I wish to 
plant the seed of an agitation there which will make itself felt in 
local legislation, and, if necessary, in such a movement as will com- 
pel attention at the Capitol of the nation. 
The tendency of human nature is to apply remedial legislation 
rather than to engage in preventive legislation.   Whilst prevent- 
ive legislation may be easier, yet indolence prompts us to wait 
till abuses cry aloud for a remedy.   We are all more likely to 
take this view as to the questions now under consideration be- 
cause we have never yet ourselves experienced the evils of land 
monopoly.   We have here a population of 70,000,000 people in a 
country capable of sustaining 400,000,000.   There has been as yet 
no congestion of population.   Land has been the one thing of 
which we have had a superabundance; but this is not true of Ha- 
waii, Porto Rico, or Luzon, and history tells us that the centrali- 
zation of land ownership has been the fruitful cause of most dis- 
astrous wars and prolonged and violent agitations.   We can rest 
assured that all the disturbances which history accredit to a system 
of land monopoly will be felt in Porto Rico, Hawaii, and Luzon 
when the advantages of our extended markets advance the value 
of the sugar lands in those islands to a point where they will arouse 
the greed of the trusts and syndicates.   History teaches us that 
unless restrained by law these great monopolies will accommodate 
themselves to any system of degraded labor which will advance 
the profits of the land. 
Turning for a moment from this general view of the subject, 
I wish to state that the amendments which I have offered were 
prepared upon the floor of the House whilst the bill was under 
consideration.   I do not claim that they are as perfect as they 
might be.   I have had no time to go into the details of this ques- 
tion, absorbed as I have been by the questions which have been 
before the Ways and Means Committee, of which I am a member; 
but my purpose has been to insert in this bill certain amendments 
which can be made the basis of thoughtful consideration by the 
conferees of the Senate and the House when this bill goes before 
them, and which can be there shaped in more scientific terms. 
Now, what are the amendments which I have offered, both suc- 
cessful and unsuccessful? 
First. In that provision of the organic act of Hawaii which pro- 
vides for the organization of corporations by the legislature of 
Hawaii, I offered an amendment that no corporation, domestic or 
foreign, should in the future acquire and hold real estate in excess 
of 1,000 acres.   That amendment was carried.   I do not pretend 
that that amendment will reach the entire difficulty to which I 
have alluded.   It will, however, go to the conferees and opportu- 
nity be given to shape it in such a way as will gradually and pro- 
gressively diminish the evils of land monopoly.   For instance, they 
might amend this by providing that corporations could acquire 
larger areas than 1,000 acres, and could develop irrigation works 
upon them, construct a factory, and build a railroad, but that when 
the entire enterprise was completed they should sell the lands so 
acquired in small holdings at the rate of not less than one-twentieth

or one-tenth of the total every year; the factory, the irrigation works, 
and the railroad being held and retained by the corporation or its as- 
signees as a public use. with charges regulated by law, so that the 
ownership or this public use could not be used in such a way as to  
oppress the land and transfer its value to the owners of the public 
use.   They might also compel the gradual division and sale of exist- 
ing holdings, or, if the conferees were indisposed to map out any 
definite system, they could provide the appointment of a commis- 
sion whose duty it would be to inquire into the condition of land 
holdings in Hawaii and to report to Congress a method for grad- 
ually rectifying its abuses. 
Another amendment which I offered was one defining the duties 
of the surveyor-general of Hawaii and providing that he should 
report annually to the Department of Labor of the United States 
and to the governor of Hawaii and the legislature the owners of 
all holdings not less than 100 acres in extent, by whom owned, 
the character of the cultivation, the number of laborers employed 
on each holding, their nationality, the wages paid, and such other 
information as the Department of Labor might prescribe.   This 
amendment was adopted by the House.   It simply provides for 
the statistical information which will enable the legislature, of 
Hawaii and the Congress of the United States to act 
I also offered an amendment declaring it to be the purpose of 
the United States to promote the increase of white labor in Hawaii, 
and to discourage the employment of Asiatics, and enacting that 
every corporation employing labor in Hawaii should, within one 
year, employ at least one-tenth of its laborers from citizens of the 
United States, citizens of the Territory of Hawaii, and other white 
persons, and that such corporations should increase the number  
of such laborers one-tenth annually, until at least three-fourths of 
their laborers should be citizens of the United States, citizens of 
the Territory of Hawaii, or other white persons.   It was the pur- 
pose of this amendment to control the question of labor by reason 
of the unquestioned power of the State over corporations, for, as 
I have already stated, almost the entire agricultural business of 
these islands is done by corporations.   It provided that gradually 
they should employ laborers other than Asiatics and spread the 
gradual increase of such labor over such a long period of time as 
would create no inconvenience to employers. 
It opened up the entire labor employment of corporations to the 
Kanakas who are now there, the Portuguese and Italians who are 
now there, and other white persons who are now there, to white 
immigrants from any country who may land there in the future, 
and to citizens of the United States, which would include both 
whites and negroes, and which would also include the people of 
Porto Rico, from which overcrowded island it should be our policy 
to transfer a part of the congested labor.   I regret to say that this  
amendment was lost, notwithstanding my statement that I pre- 
sented it in order that it might form the basis of consideration and 
action by the conferees, who could enlarge it or contract it or 
modify it and whose judgment would finally be submitted to both 
the Senate and the House.   It worked no injury whatever to the 
existing Asiatic labor there, for it must be recollected that the 
population of these islands must be steadily increased, and it is 
entirely probable that the Asiatic labor now employed there, and 
displaced by the gradual system which the amendment provides 
for, would be absorbed by new enterprises, such as rice planta- 
tions, etc., or in domestic labor, or would be glad to return to their 
homes with their accumulations, as most of them do.   But unfor- 
tunately this amendment was defeated. 
1 also offered an amendment providing that there should be a 
commissioner of labor who should be appointed by the President 
of the United States and whose duties were identical with those of 
the various commissioners now provided for by the intelligent 
legislatures of the various States of the Union.   It was made his 
duty to acquire and diffuse among the people of Hawaii useful 
information on the subject of labor, and especially upon its rela- 
tion to capital, the hours of labor, the earnings of the laboring 
men and women, and the means to promote their social, intellec- 
tual , and moral prosperity.   It was made his duty to make annual 
reports to the legislature of Hawaii and also to the United States  
Department of Labor.   He was charged with the duty of investi- 
gating the causes and facts relating to all controversies and dis- 
putes between employer and employee and to report thereon both 
to the Hawaiian government and our own.   He was to require 
such statements as might be prescribed by the United States De- 
partment of Labor from all the employers of labor.   This provi- 
sion, moderate yet full and ample and molded upon the best legis- 
lation in this country, was, to my great surprise, lost.                   
And now, Mr. Chairman, I have presented to the committee the 
amendment which has just been read regarding a commissioner 
of labor.   It is not as full and complete as the one that I desired. 
It was drawn hastily by the Commissioner of Labor, with whom  
I communicated by telephone.   I am inclined to think that he  
would have made it fuller in its details if I had had an oppor- 
tunity of conversing with him, but I now submit the amendment  
as presenting the views of Mr. Wright, the Commissioner of Labor  
of the United States, and ask its adoption.   

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