per cent. a month. This abuse could be abolished in a day by the simple
announcement that no planter would hereafter pay more than ten dollars
advance. But it has gone on for years, and the sum paid gets higher every
year merely by the planters outbidding each other.

Again, it is possible to ship sugar from some of the Islands direct to
San Francisco, and for but little more than is now paid for shipping it
to Honolulu. Half a dozen planters on Hawaii or Maui, clubbing together,
could easily get a ship or half a dozen ships to come for their sugar, and
thus save five per cent. on their gross returns, now paid to agents. But
this is not done, partly because so many planters are in need of money,
which they borrow in Honolulu, with the understanding that they will
submit their produce to the management of agents there.

Again, the planters err, I think, in not giving personal study to the
question of a market for their sugar. They leave this to the agents to
manage. No doubt these gentlemen are competent; but it is easy to see that
their interests may be somewhat different from those of the planter. For
instance, some years ago an arrangement was offered by the San Francisco
sugar refineries by which these agreed to take two-thirds of the product
of the plantations in crude sugar, to furnish bags to contain this
product, and to pay cash for it in Honolulu. Under this system the planter
was saved the heavy expense of sugar kegs, and the cost of two agencies
of five per cent. each, besides getting cash in Honolulu, whereas now his
sugar is usually sold at three months in San Francisco, and he probably
loses six months' interest, reckoning from the time his sugar leaves the
plantation. This arrangement, several planters told me, was profitable to
them; but it was discontinued--it was not to the advantage of the agents;
its discontinuance was no doubt a blunder for the planters. Moreover,
the Australian market has been too long neglected; but the advantage of