[Editor: This untitled article, regarding the Australian sugar industry and Kanakas, is an extract from the general news section published in The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 13 August 1901.]
[Dr. Maxwell’s report on the labour aspect of the sugar industry]
Dr. Maxwell’s report on the labour aspect of the sugar industry — a précis of which appeared in “The Argus” yesterday — will afford most valuable assistance to the Federal Parliament when it is called upon to discuss the Government proposals touching the kanaka.
His advice has been sought as that of the most highly-qualified expert in Australia. In a general report on the industry, written eighteen months ago, he credited Queensland with a supremely advantageous combination of climatic conditions for sugar production. Also, he stated that inspection of extensive tracts of sugar country had convinced him of the existence of a great natural fertility, which intelligent enterprise could turn to profitable account. So the natural foundations of a permanent industry exist.
The requisites of an enormous expansion are up-to-date cultivation and a sufficient supply of suitable labour. Dr. Maxwell shows that the European’s capacity as a worker in the cane-field decreases, while his wage increases, as he goes north. The explanation is that the inferiority as a worker is due to the tropical conditions, and the higher wage to the difficulty of getting him at all.
With the kanaka the position is reversed. He is most capable and costs least in the far north. The humid heat of the north and the drier cold of the south have the same weakening effect respectively on the European and the kanaka.
On the other hand, while tropical agriculture severely taxes the strength of the average European, it is not prohibitory to all Europeans. The proportion of those who can do any work in a cane-field diminishes as we travel northwards. It is not a large proportion in the Cairns district. But it exists even there, and by a natural process many who can stand the tropical conditions become cane-growers.
There has been, as Dr. Maxwell points out, a large increase of these settlers upon sugar lands during the past decade, and the concurrent increase in the output of sugar, with a reduction of the islanders employed, shows the tendency. The kanaka is a declining factor in sugar production. How far can the rate of decline be safely accelerated by legislation? That is the problem.
Settle more white families on the sugar areas, says Dr. Maxwell; and he hopes to see this done by a more intensive cultivation. Mechanical invention — say, in the shape of a cane-cutting machine — would help in the same direction. But the facts to grasp are that the industry is becoming more and more, and that the kanaka is becoming less and less in it.
The kanaka has to go, but Parliament is not called upon to deal with an immediate and appalling danger, and therefore revolutionary proposals may be considered out of court.
Source:
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 13 August 1901, p. 4 (column 7)
Editor’s notes:
islander = (in the context of labourers on sugar plantations in early Australia) a Pacific Islander (workers originating from the Pacific islands were also known as “kanakas”)
kanaka = a Pacific Islander employed as an indentured labourer in various countries, such as Australia (especially in Queensland), British Columbia (Canada), Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu; in Australia the kanakas were mostly used on the sugar plantations and cotton plantations in Queensland (the word “kanaka” derives from the Hawaiian word for “person” or “man”)
See: 1) “Australian South Sea Islanders”, State Library of Queensland
2) “Kanaka”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
3) “AGY-2566 | Royal Commission of Enquiry into certain cases of Alleged Kidnapping of Natives of the Loyalty Islands, in the years 1865 – 1868; and the state and probable results of Polynesian Immigration”, Research Data Australia
4) Keith Windschuttle, “Why Australia had no slavery: The islanders”, Quadrant, 19 June 2020
5) “Digitised @ SLQ – Islanders speak out about deportation in 1906”, State Library of Queensland, 15 August 2013
6) “Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)”, Wikipedia
Maxwell = Dr. Walter Maxwell (1854-1931), an agricultural scientist who investigated and reported on the sugar industry in Australia during 1900-1910; he was born in Paradise (Durham, England) in 1854, spent approximately ten years in Australia (1900-1910), and died in Conway (New Hampshire, USA)
See: 1) John D. Kerr, “Walter Maxwell (1854–1931)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Maxwell, Walter (1854 – 1931)”, Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation (Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology)
out of court = to settle a matter without resorting to legal action in a court of law; for two opposing parties (in an argument or dispute) to reach an agreement or settlement without a judgment in a court of law; to deal with a matter without recourse to the legal system; regarding something which is not considered important enough to deserve consideration or examination
précis = (also spelt: precis) a concise summary, an abridged statement; an abstract or brief; an abridgment or summing up of a longer argument, opinion, statement, or text (i.e. a short version of something, written or spoken, which gives the essential, important, key, or major points)
sugar lands = areas where sugarcane is grown
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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