Mr. Daggett to Mr. Frelinghuysen .
Honolulu , February 14, 1885. (Received March 2.)
Sir: I have the honor to apprise you that, by the steamship Tokio, reaching here on the 8th instant from Yokohama, by way of Hong-Kong, 948 Japanese laborers arrived from Japan. About two hundred of the number are women and children, and all of them, I understand, have found labor engagements. The last legislative assembly appropriated $50,000 for the encouragement of Japanese immigration, and these are the first of the three or four thousand which it is expected the appropriation will secure. The Government pays their passage and guarantees to them wages at a rate not less than $9 per month and food, the month to consist of twenty-six working days. They seem, as a whole, to be a hardy and tractable class of laborers, and the planters have engaged them promptly.
With these immigrants arrived Mr. Jiro Nakamura, in the official capacity of consul of the Japanese Empire, to reside in Honolulu and look after the interests of his countrymen. He expects two additional shipments of laborers from Japan within the next six months.
Very respectfully, &c.,