. The paradise of the Pacific: the Hawaiian Islands [electronic resource] . rce connected with theseislands is American. The merchants, traders,dealers of all kinds, and planters are principallyAmericans. The English have no commerce hereworthy of the name, and but one or two retailstores; the Germans, about the same amount ofbusiness as the English. Many American mer-chants here are doing quite a large business, andwould extend their business still more but for thedanger of British rule over the group, which if itshould become the dominant or governing power,American interests would be crushe
. The paradise of the Pacific: the Hawaiian Islands [electronic resource] . rce connected with theseislands is American. The merchants, traders,dealers of all kinds, and planters are principallyAmericans. The English have no commerce hereworthy of the name, and but one or two retailstores; the Germans, about the same amount ofbusiness as the English. Many American mer-chants here are doing quite a large business, andwould extend their business still more but for thedanger of British rule over the group, which if itshould become the dominant or governing power,American interests would be crushed out witheagerness and despatch. This report was madein 1863, and it will be seen that American inter-est lost very little if any vitality. The treaty of commercial reciprocity with theUnited States in 1875, by which sugar in all itsstates and several other articles were admittedthere free, gave an unprecedented growth to indus-try in all branches, and an intoxicating increasein wealth followed. Men seemed to go wild overthe prospects, and in the lack of cheap labour to. rrXTTTTTTTTTT r» ■ ■ i h ■ ■ ■ i INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS. 141 help develop enterprises as fast as they wanted to,the importation of low-priced labour succeededwith startling rapidity, as will be shown in thechapters devoted to the Japanese and Chinese inthe islands. The valuation of property advanced,but the price of labour suffered from the greatinflux from abroad. Less than one-tenth of thehelp were natives. The proportion of the immi-grants procured for contract labour was twenty-fivewomen to one hundred men as a rule, and fromthe lowest and most ignorant classes of foreigners. But this headlong rush has been checked, andHawaii is rapidly recovering from the shock, withthe brightest prospects for the future. The islandswhich are foremost in industrial interests areHawaii, with its great varieties of soil and climate,affording numerous sugar plantations and coffeelands; Maui, following in the same lin
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