The outbreak of the Civil war in the United States cut off the supply of sugar drawn from the Southern states and caused the price of Hawaiian sugar in kegs to advance to ten cents a pound. This gave the Hawaiian producers their first real start. In 1863 the export tonnage was 2600, and this increased until in 1860 it reached 8869 tons. A small plantation was started at Paia, Maui, by a Captain Bush in 1868 and in the following year he disposed of it to S. T. Alexander and H. P. Baldwin. The former gentleman was then manager of the Haiku plantation and the acquisition of his interest in the Paia venture necessitated his going to Honolulu to borrow the sum of $9000, which he managed to do, but not without difficulty. Mr. Alexander was the father of irrigation in Hawaii. He promoted and built the Haiku ditch, which was the forerunner of the present magnificent water-distributing system of the islands. The period from 1869 to 1876 was one of arduous struggle for the planters. Their very existence was at stake. The duty levied on imports by the United States cut their margins down to nothing, labor was scarce and the cost of obtaining it great, the rate of interest was from ten to twelve per cent, agents’ commissions for buying and selling ran from five to ten per cent; in short, many plantations were threatened with utter ruin, and so seriously discouraged did the business men become that the only gleam of hope for the salvation of the sugar industry seemed to be annexation. Repeated efforts were made to negotiate a reciprocity treaty with the United States. Finally this was accomplished; the treaty was consummated in 1876 and a new Hawaii was born. The expansion that followed was more rapid than the finances of the country could stand. Depression ensued, and as a result the resources of the islands were taxed to the utmost. The demand for labor during this period of expansion was so great that the pay of the laborers in the fields was raised to one dollar a day, with free rent, fuel and medical attendance. Laborers were sought for in the far corners of the earth, and in consequence the islands have a race mixture rarely found anywhere else in the world. In 1876 the annual crop of the islands could have been put in one vessel of the capacity of those that are now engaged in freighting Hawaiian raw sugars to the United States, the total being in the neighborhood of 13,000 short tons. At that time, however, this seemed an enormous amount to the planters with their small acreage and mills. It is well known that one planter was very much exercised as to how he was possibly going to handle the extraordinary production of 1100 tons from his plantation, which was then the largest in the islands.