Hawaii — page 110: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SRS a Ee OG Be LILIUOKALANI AND THE REVOLUTION. 101 CHAPTER VIII. QUEEN LILIUOKALANI AND THE REVOLUTION. In 1875 a reciprocity treaty was negotiated with the United States, under which sugar grown in the Hawaiian islands was admitted to this country free of duty. This stimulated the production of sugar enormously, until the amount of the duty remitted on Hawaiian sugar reached $5,000,000 a year. American capital flowed into the country, and all the lands suitable for growing the sugar cane passed into the hands of foreigners. The native Hawaiians, though more vigorous, intelligent and in- dustrious than other Polynesians, were not employed by the new owners, who introduced the system of contract labor. Being unable to supply themselves from the Poly- nesian islands, they imported Chinese coolies and Japanese under treaties with their sovernments, and also Portuguese from the Azores and Madeira. The early planters employed the natives as laborers, and lived among them on their estates, which earned but moderate and precafious profits. After reciprocity the estates were converted into joint stock companies, and influences were brought to bear on the King, who was Kalakaua, and the Legislature, to remove the restrictions on Chinese immigration, and introduce the kind of semi- slavery known as the contract-labor system. Eomichbooks m