Here, as in the canneries, there was general good spirit among the employes, even the girls shaking out the sheets and table-cloths for the mangles—the most tiring work of all—doing it with much chattering and gossip. It must be because so much of the work is done in the fresh air that one sees little of the strained, tired expression of the mainland industrial worker. Several of the women stated that they had varicose ulcers on their legs, but none of these had been working in the laundry for a sufficiently long period to make this work the cause of the trouble.
The laundries are all prosperous and growing, their managers say, most of the work coming from the steamers and transports constantly touching at Honolulu.
No previous training is required or wished, each laundry having its own way of doing its work and preferring to teach its own employes. There should be employment for from twenty-five to thirty girls in this work within the next year; but a ten-hour day rigid law and better wages are needed here.
The Fourth Report of the Department of Commerce and Labor on Hawaii (Bulletin No. 94, May, 1911) sums up the possibilities of industry in the islands as a whole as follows—(1) page 674:
“The Territory possesses no mineral or fuel deposits, and this, together with the remoteness from markets, prevents diversified industries. A small amount of subsistence farming, followed principally by natives and orientals, and the production of staple export crops, like sugar, have hitherto been the principal occupations of the people.”
To this should also be added the product of the pineapple canneries, which, strangely enough, is omitted entirely from the report, although increasing in value and importance by leaps and bounds. This omission may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the bulletin issued in May was compiled before the canning season commenced, which is not usually until June 1st, lasting this year until October 5th. In the past ten years the value of the pineapple exports _increased from_ $3,948 _to_ $1,229,647, almost 400%,[4] and the growth of this year’s business over last may be gauged from the fact that while one establishment employed a maximum of 215 women and girls last year, this year they report 450 employed during their heaviest time.