It may be said that it is comparatively new on this coast, particularly in
this republic. I find that in the year 1859 exports of sugars of all kinds
amounted in value only to $80,000. Last year (1875) the exports from Peru
were 60,000 tons, of which 20,485 tons were exported direct to England by
steamers through Magellan Straits. Sugar is raised on this coast from
Lambayeque to Tambo, (6° 30ʹ 17° south latitude,) or a line of over 700
miles. All the valleys that lead up through spurs of the Andes are very
rich. Some of them are of great width. Also, large areas are cultivated on
the lower slopes between the cordilleras and the sea. As it does not rain,
the cane-fields are watered by an immense system of irrigation, a great part
through the old lines of the Incas. Cane takes about two years to be ripe
for cutting. By cutting and planting, it may be said that the mills could
grind all the year. They make sugar about eight months in the year. The rest
of the time is occupied in tilling the ground and cleaning out the
“acequias” or irrigating ditches. I have visited a number of the
plantations, and find that the cane produces more and richer saccharine
matter than the cane of Cuba, and, from conversation had with persons who
have been employed in Louisiana and Cuba, I learn that the sugar-cane here
has many advantages over those places. Having resided many years in Cuba, I
have some knowledge of cane and manufacture. I have visited in the north of
Peru, at Chimbote and Pacasmayo, two of the largest sugar-mills and
sugar-making apparatus supposed to be in the world. These plantations cost
nearly 2,500,000 soles. Nearly 1,000 workmen or laborers on each. Nothing
like them in Cuba. The machinery is a splendid specimen of American
industry, from Philadelphia. It has lately been put up, and can grind and
turn into, centrifugal sugar of first class, 500 quintals in twelve hours,
or 25 tons, of sugar from the cane, ready for shipment. The greatest
difficulty about cane-culture is want of hands. The natives of the sierras
or Andes cannot work down on the lowlands of the coast. News has lately been
received that
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contracts have been
made by Peruvian commissioners in China with the house of Olyphant & Co.
to be supplied with Chinese laborers.
In connection with this, I inclose an article from the leading journal of
Lima, El National, which has excited quite a
discussion from the rest of the press of this city.
Within the last year quite a demand for Peruvian sugar has sprung up in the
Argentine Eepublic, and it appears to be increasing.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]
[Extract from El Nacional, Lima, February
11, 1876.]
Asiatic colony.
A few days ago one of the newspapers of this capital announced that,
according to notice received from Hong-Kong, the Asiatic immigration was
on the eve of being reestablished under convenient and legal basis. This
asseveration was confirmed by a telegram of our chargé d’affaires to
China, through which notice is given that the treaty with that empire
has been exchanged, and the preliminary arrangements were concluded with
the house of Olyphant & Co. for the Chinese immigration to Peru,
which could commence immediately.
Two daily newspapers have received this news with marked demonstration of
great rejoicing. To their ideas, doubtless, the great interest of
industry has been saved, threatened, as they were, by a tremendous
crisis for the want of hands for labor.
It causes us profound sorrow that such an important and transcendental
question, which, from a mere operation of industry, has become converted
into a social one, is treated and judged as lightly, more so after the
acquired experience of so many years in which Asiatic immigration was
established and encouraged.
There are no hands for labor! This is the favorite theme, the supreme
cause, the definitive judgment against those who raise their voice in
relief of humanity, of our free institutions, and for the improvement of
our race, to stop the contagion of impure customs, immoral habits, and
cruelties repugnant to civilization and our political ideas.
It is proved that with very rare exceptions the Asiatic colonists work
but under the influence of constant menace and punishment more or less
severe. It is necessary to intimidate them, and the means employed to
obtain that result have taken the proportions of the most scandalous
abuses, in many instances the authorities being obliged to intervene, in
order to make effective the guarantees which our laws offer to all who
live on Peruvian soil.
Since Asiatic immigration was established in our ports, slavery, although
abolished in name, was re-established de facto.
The similar absolute dominion was established over the new colonist as
that formerly exercised over the negroes; they were chastised with the
same cruelty, and traded in without consulting them in the least. And
all this was done under the name of protection to industry! Why have we
then praised abolition, when it was known that we gave a mortal blow to
Peruvian industry? Was it for the pleasure to give it a new shape?
Why do we consider an offense to humanity that in some of the Antilles
slavery is still continued, when it is evident that there it is the
principal support of industry?
Is this by chance the result offered by those who have charge to procure
immigration? Is this the solution that was to be given to the question
proposed to them? This signifies to re-establish the system of Asiatic
colonization—a system that cannot be implanted or methodized without
wounding deeply the laws of our political organization, debasing and
depreciating the inviolable rights of human dignity.
There is yet more: If the object was to introduce Asiatic colonists for
agricultural industry only, the official protection offered to this
class of immigration could be tolerated. Can the Chinese who contracts
himself on his arrival at Peru, or is free at the term of his
compromise, according to our laws, dedicate himself to any licit
industry? We would oppose it. He would dedicate himself to those
industries in which, with less rigorous and absorbent work, could earn
as much or more than what he earns by cultivating plantations.
The same reason will increase the depths of filthiness and bad habits
paraded this present day in some of the principal streets of this city,
insulting public morality.
The Asiatic race, who, for the singularity of its institutions and
personal instinct, advanced very little or nothing in more than a
thousand years, have a civilization different and contrary to ours.
[Page 419]
Then, instead of being enriched with the contact of coolies, we shall
gradually but surely be impoverished. It is not, under any circumstance,
the desired element for colonization.
It is true that the Asiatics are intelligent, and have few necessities.
Under this view they would be strong competitors to our working class,
and for which reason they could work cheap, their sustenance costing
them but little.
In exchange the Chinese gamble is vicious and voluptuous. To restrain the
contagion of those evils, the introduction of Chinese women would be
necessary, should they not come themselves, and in such case the
seriousness of the evil would be greater in another view. The sad
experience California has had on this subject has been the origin of
serious investigations, of protests, and the repugnance of the North
American people.
Why then that anxiety to augment every day, in alarming proportions, the
current of Asiatic immigration? Why this rejoicing when it is known that
it will again be re-established? Do the new colonists bring us a better
civilization than ours? Do they bring purer customs, moral habits or
political doctrines better than ours? Do they even bring the energy of a
virile race, generous and elevated sentiments? No, by no means; under
all those views, they bring degeneration and nothing else.
Against the interests of civilization, morality, habits, physical and
moral improvement of the country, those of agriculturists is
preferred.
That which is wanted is a laborer who works from sunrise to sunset; who
can live on two rations of rice; who earns one sol a week, which in the
majority of the cases is discounted from him for real or supposed
damages occasioned by him; and who can drag chains, be flogged, and
cruelly persecuted when he leaves the house of his master. This is what
is wanted. Under those conditions it will certainly be impossible to
obtain day-laborers in this country. Let them be contracted under
reasonable conditions, encourage labor by other means than cruelty, and
let those large and unproductive capitals now employed in the
construction of sumptuous palaces be applied to better the condition of
laborers; then better colonists, real workmen, will be obtained, instead
of instruments subject to the caprice of their masters.
In the supposition that an extreme and imperious necessity would oblige
us for a longer period of time to favor Asiatic immigration, we ought to
accept it as a necessary evil, submitting instead of consenting to it;
but never hail it with rejoicing, when by so doing it is to the grave
detriment of other interests of greater importance.
The four-fifths of mendicants who roam through the streets of Lima are
Asiatics, who were rendered incapable to work through the rigor used
against them in plantations. At first producers, they are now reduced to
the state of simple consumers.
Can labor and industry be bettered under such conditions?
