South. They were the workmen who built the Pacific railroads, and
without them it is said that these railroads could not have been
constructed until several years after their actual completion.

The immigration of the Chinese reached its highest figures prior to the
exclusion laws of 1882, and since that time has been but an
insignificant contribution. In their place have come the Japanese, a
race whose native land, in proportion to its cultivable area, is more
densely populated than any other country in the world. The Chinese and
Japanese are perhaps the most industrious of all races, while the
Chinese are the most docile. The Japanese excel in imitativeness, but
are not as reliable as the Chinese. Neither race, so far as their
immigrant representatives are concerned, possesses the originality and
ingenuity which characterize the competent American and British
mechanic. In the Hawaiian Islands, where they have enjoyed greater
opportunities than elsewhere, they are found to be capable workmen of
the skilled trades, provided they are under the direction of white
mechanics.[76] But their largest field of work in Hawaii is in the
unskilled cultivation of the great sugar plantations. Here they have
been likened to "a sort of agricultural automaton," and it becomes
possible to place them in large numbers under skilled direction, and
thus to secure the best results from their docility and industry.

In the United States itself the plantation form of agriculture, as
distinguished from the domestic form, has always been based on a supply
of labor from backward or un-Americanized races. This fact has a bearing
on the alleged tendency of agriculture toward large farms. Ten years
ago it seemed that the great "bonanza" farms were destined to displace
the small farms, just as the trust displaces the small manufacturer. But
it is now recognized that the reverse movement is in progress, and that
the small farmer can compete successfully with the great farmer. It has
not, however, been pointed out that the question is not merely an
economic one and that it depends upon the industrial character of the
races engaged in agriculture. The thrifty, hard-working and intelligent
American or Teutonic farmer is able to economize and purchase his own
small farm and compete successfully with the large undertaking. He is
even beginning to do this in Hawaii since the compulsory labor of his
large competitors was abolished.[77] But the backward, thr