By the King: W. L. Green to Comly, March 28, 1882

Mr. Green to Mr. Comly.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch of 23d instant, in which you inquire with regard to obtaining certain statistics, as to available sugar and rice lands not yet taken up, as to lands available for small holdings, and what inducements are offered by Hawaiian laws in the way of homesteads for immigrants of small means, and as to amount and kinds of labor already employed, wages, &c.

I will, if you will allow me, answer the second question first, as to the inducement offered by Hawaiian laws in the way of homesteads for immigrants, by stating that the government possesses no lands, or at least not in sufficient quantity to make it practicable to offer small holdings for immigrants.

There are, however, opportunities continually offered by private parties, to planters of sugar-cane who wish to take up small quantities of land. This, however, is in the way of lease, not sale.

With regard to the available sugar and rice lands not yet taken up, I regret that the government have no reliable statistics. What appeared in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser of last Saturday week, purporting to give the available sugar lands, was got up hastily by the Planters’ Association, in 1872, and is not reliable.

I have asked the vice-president of the new Planters’ Association if he could furnish me with reliable statistics, but he informs me that it would require a special committee, and take some months to work them up.

With regard to the amount and kinds of labor now employed, the statistics which have appeared in the papers lately are tolerably correct as far as they go, but they are incomplete, and not sufficiently exact and authoritative to be used by you as reliable data in answering instructions from the honorable Secretary of State.

I remain, &c.,