prospered and multiplied, but as the earth became smaller with increased knowledge and improved means of navigation and as the greed of men drove adventurers to unknown corners of the world in search of fabulous riches, these somnolent islands could not long remain isolated, and were soon opened up to immigration from Europe and Asia. The factor that facilitated this migration of races to this out-of-the-way spot was the sugar industry that found native labor undependable and looked for workers of the old world that had been inured to centuries of uncomplaining toil. Natives did not know what real labor meant. The Portuguese were recruited in the Madeira and Azores Islands. Germans, Spaniards, Russians, Chinese, and finally Japanese were brought in to work on the sugar plantations. The Portuguese were industrious and obedient. They settled permanently, but did not like the low-waged indentured labor in the canefields and soon left the plantations to buy small farms and homestead. As independent farmers they might raise their own milk-cows, and chickens. For money to buy necessities of life, they worked on the neighboring plantation. Experiments with Germans, a boatload of whom came to Lihue, Kauai, and Spaniards that followed were equally unsuccessful from the sugar planters' viewpoint. They sought greener pastures in the continental United States and migrated further on from Hawaii.
The more successful immigrants for the needs of the sugar planters were the Chinese. They came from the province of Canton in southern China where the climate is much like that of the tropics, and had been used to long hours of hard labor. To construct the Southern Pacific Railroad, they were imported by the thousands as contract laborers to California and similarly thousands were brought to the Hawaiian Kingdom. As the custom of China forbade marriage of anyone not able to provide for a wife, young coolies that came to these islands for the most part were single. Very few females accompanied them. As a result they intermarried freely among the natives and a steady mixture of races came into being.
Despite the fact that the islands were under the rule of absolute monarchs of the line of the Kamehamehas, the power of the judiciary, executive, and military was in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons. These represented the moneyed sugar planters, and they were responsible for the introduction of new races into the community. The days of the New England whaling fleet which had found refuge in Lahaina and Honolulu during the winter off-season months were history, and the spiritual power wielded over the throne by the New England missionaries metamorphosed into a new generation of established capitalists who were sons and sons-in-law of these well-meaning but fanatical religious enthusiasts. The days of religious fervor were succeeded by the greed of a capitalistic generation. A treaty of reciprocity was concluded with the United States. In return for the American use of Pearl Harbor as a coaling station for the Navy, Hawaii's sugar was to have preferential tariff rates when landed at San Francisco. Though an independens monarchy, Hawaii was a mere appendage of the United States economically. British and German interests were jealous but powerless. Therefore, when the United States passed laws forbidding entry of Chinese into her ports and across her boundaries, Hawaii voluntarily followed suit. She was sensitive to the pendulum of American sentiment and forbade further recruiting of Cantonese labor to work in her sugarcane fields, because her sugar had to be sold in the markets of the mainland.
Deprived of this profitable fountain of cheap labor, a new source had to be tapped in order to keep the plantation going at a profit so that dividends would go to shareholders. Whatever may be said about the avariciousness and cold-bloodedness of these pioneers—their exploitation of native ignorance and in the appropriation and robbing of theis lands, credit must be given to their farsighted empire-building schemes They built for generations ahead, not merely for tomorrow. So wher King Kalakaua made a trip around the world in the 1880's, his itinerary included a visit to Japan. In the annals of the history of the Island Empire, Kalakaua was the first foreign sovereign to visit the empire and he was enthusiastically received. This royal visit paved the way for a conclusion of a treaty and revived migration of Japanese to the sugarcane fields of Hawaii. Previously, in 1865, such an experiment had been made but was soon given up after one shipload. A vigorous protest was made by the Japanese government when it learned that the immigrants wen harshly treated and the provisions of the treaty not lived up to by the plantations. From 1885 on, a steady stream of immigrant ships pliee between the ports of Japan and Honolulu and brought young men and women to the kingdom.
Thus we find young Seikichi Arata among the several hundred workers destined for the canefields for three years under contract (in other words, indentured labor) at twelve and a half dollars per month The plantations were to furnish housing, fuel, and medical care, bu the men had to feed themselves on this meager stipend. Seikichi was sent with fifty others to the Makaweli Plantation on the Island of Kauai. They were received as "new men" in a row of old, dilapidated bunk houses that had been used for a few decades by Chinese laborers. Built of the roughest 1 by 12 number, with galvanized iron for roofing, and painted with a white lime mixture, the external appearance of these barracks was neither inviting nor hospitable. The interior consisted of a platform about two feet above the floor extending the entire length of the room. On this platform, a thin straw matting was spread and tacked on. Blankets were to be spread for the night and folded against the wall during the daytime so that the room could serve as a living room. The walls were painted with whitewash, but having been done years ago, the bare boards exposed their ugly texture underneath the thin coating which was peeling off. Here and there, rectangular pieces of red paper on which Chinese ideographic characters were written were found pasted on the wall. These were legible and comprehensible to the newcomers and they had to admire the exquisite line in the strokes of the brush, but they could not help smiling at the meaning of the phrases. They were prompted by prayers for health, the keeping out of demons and bad luck, prayers for the coming of an ample harvest etc., and were written at New Year's time, just as Westerners would make New Year's resolutions.
How to clean up the place so that maximum pleasure might be derived even in such surroundings, was a problem to be met and solved immediately. Compatriots who had arrived earlier and were already established came instantly to meet the new arrivals. They were eager for news of their homeland, hoping to see familiar faces from their own villages, or men with whom friendships had been struck up in the ports of Kobe and Nagasaki while waiting for transportation. These men took the problem out of the newcomers' hands and tidied the room. They went to the store to buy straw mats to cover the platform and brought old magazines and newspapers to paste on the ugly walls. In a few hours the new arrivals were made to feel more at home. Breaking the ice by self-introduction, people were soon like old friends and news and experiences were exchanged. Of special interest was information regarding plantation life--what to expect and what was required of them. It was a relief to learn that the Makaweli Plantation was run by a manager with just and humane tendencies. The treatment of laborers on this plantation was incomparably better than on others, where horrid stories o inconceivable brutality were circulated throughout the islands. This brutality made the whole system of contract labor not unlike slavery.
The next day was allotted them to do as they wished in adjusting themselves to the new environment. In the red dirt of Makaweli, in the dusty leaves of the keawe tree, in the fluttering mynah birds, and in the green exuberance of the irrigated sugar cane, they discovered the richness of the tropics. The satiation of their curiosity regarding this Strange land was partially attained. As a rebound reaction, a homesickness fo their native villages and pine-clad hills of Japan assailed everyone as the curtain of dusk descended and enshrouded everything. But they wen to be here for three years. At the expiration of the contract there would be a maximum lump sum of nearly two hundred dollars. One could return with some pride to the native village. The only thing to do now was to take care of one's health, work hard, and save as much as possible Toward evening, the "luna," or overseer, came around and stood the newcomers in a single row. After scrutinizing them carefully, he begar assigning men to different types of work. Not all were to work in the fields. The aptitude and intelligence of each man was determined a once by the experienced eyes of the overseer. Through an interpreter Seikichi was told to report to the sugar mill the following morning.
At five o'clock the siren from the mill announced reveille and hur riedly they got up, performed their morning ablutions, and repaired to the mess room run by one of the wives, Mrs. Fukuda, and intimately called "Obasan" by all. Meals were extremely frugal, for the material! used were cheap. Monthly board to be paid for three meals a day wa four and a half dollars. By any stretch of the imagination, it would be impossible