If a sugar planter has his land and machinery heavily mortgaged at ten or twelve per cent interest; if he must, moreover, borrow money on his crop in the field to enable him to turn that into sugar; if then he sends the product to an agent in Honolulu, who charges him five per cent.

for shipping it to San Francisco; and if in San Francisco another agent charges him five per cent.

more, _on the gross returns including freight and duty_, for selling it; if besides all this the planter buys his supplies on credit, and is charged one per cent.

a month on these, compounded every three months until it is paid, and pays almost as much freight on his sugar from the plantation to Honolulu as from there to its final market--it is highly probable that he will, in the course of time, fail.
There are not many legitimate enterprises in the world which would bear such charges and leave a profit to the manager.

But it is on this system that the planting of sugar has been, to a large extent, carried on for years in the Islands.