No. 18.
Mr. Wilcox to Mr. Blount.
Hon. James H.
Blount,
United States
Commissioner, etc.:
Sir: Referring to the amount of appropriations by the Government on account of contract laborers or coolies, under the guise of encouraging emigration, I present the following list of appropriations from 1874 to 1890, inclusive, amounting to the sum total of $1,315,000, as follows:
| In 1874, encouraging agriculture and emigration | $50,000 |
| In 1876, encouraging of emigration | 35,000 |
| In 1880, encouraging of emigration | 100,000 |
| In 1882, encouraging of emigration (an act) | 500,000 |
| In 1884, encouraging of emigration | 390,000 |
| In 1886, encouraging of emigration | 150,000 |
| In 1888, encouraging of emigration | 30,000 |
| In 1890, encouraging of emigration | 60,000 |
| 1,315,000 |
In 1881 six thousand Chinese were imported. They brought with them the smallpox, which caused the death of three hundred native Hawaiians at Honolulu.
Nine-tenths of the above amount was spent for importing Chinese and Japanese laborers, while the other tenth was spent for Germans, Portuguese and Norwegians laborers.
The European class of laborers would be good citizens for the country, but were unable to make homes here, on account of the close and ruinous competition with the Asiatics. No men in the world can successfully compete with the Chinese and Japanese in most business pursuits or as laborers. For this reason Europeans of the laboring classes have left, this country as soon as their contracts expired.
The late Legislature passed an act to limit the number of Chinese to five thousand annually. For some time previous Chinese emigration was stopped, Japanese being substituted for them.
If this country continues to be under the control of the sugar planters Hawaii will be only fit to be a home for rich sugar planters and their Slaves—the paradise and inferno of the Pacific.
Yours obediently,