Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 194, 15 May 1891 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

"E Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono."

 

Enthusiastic Reception by the Chief of the Kanakas.

 

            (We regret that, our reporter not being invited to accompany the Queen, we are unable to give a report of Her journey, except the following communication sent in by an amateur correspondent from Hilo.  We have always believed Hilo to be the native heath of the liar, and training school of the professional prevaricator.  So we hope not to be held responsible for the accuracy nor for the sentiments of the following.)

            At ten o’clock the royal party left for way ports and Hilo.  Salutes were blown from whistles all along the route and the plantations all threw the Hawaiian flag to the breeze.  it was very touching to see the plantations standing along the line with tears of joy in their eyes to greet Her Majesty.  it seemed as if the poor soulless things wanted the Queen to notice them.

            The party arrived at Hilo at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.  As soon as the “Kinau” dropped anchor in Hilo Bay, a large double canoe paddled by a dozen or more natives in aboriginal costumes came off to carry Her Majesty to the landing.  They were as handsome a lot of men as one would wish to see, brawny, sinewy and graceful specimen of the native race, dressed in uniform consisting of malos of bright red cloth and natural skins of several shades.  In the prow of the great war canoe stood Gingogingo, the original high chief of all the Hawaiian and hereditary ex-officio executioner.  As he stood up proudly with folded arms, he looked very dignified with his middle done up in a red rag.

            His Highness Prince Gingogingo is a small man with a bright red skin and a bald head.  He has a thin blond, almost dun, beard through which the gentle trade winds played.  His legs are slender and curve gracefully beneath his weight.  His eyes are turned in different directions, which is thought by some to detract from his beauty, but by those who know him is thought to increase his personal magnetism.  This gentleman is known officially as King Hitchcock on account of a peculiar way of tying the malo that descended from his ancestors.

            The dock was prepared in great taste.  The familiar word “aloha” was seen on landing inscribed in expensive white chalk in several places on the wharf.    There was a large and enthusiastic gathering on the wharf to greet Her Majesty consisting of a large concourse of school-children, all the red and brown kanakas in the pay of the government, also the plantation managers, who it is reported were acting under sealed orders from Honolulu together with qite a few Japs.

            The Hilo band was present and played familiar airs, while the Queen was arriving.  Instead of the usual display of military, a large body of prisoners in neat bilateral unifoms were ranged along the road.  It must not be thought these were all caught thieves and disreputable criminals.  King Hitchcock has secured many honest and respected citizens for his prison gang.

            At the corner of Waianuenue and Front Streets there was an immense arch covered with green leaves and decorated with the mystic word “Aloha.”  Another of equal dimensions had been erected near the telephone office with the strange device—‘aloha.”  There was a lovely arch of ferns and flowers a little further on having written on it in floral letter the following legend,--‘aloha’  At the corner of Waianuenue and Pitman Street there had been prepared for Her Majesty’s pleasure and in her honor a high arch covered with greens bearing the motto embossed with a shoe-brush on a fine quality of white card-board—“aloha.”  At the entrance of the residence of the Hon. J. F. Baker was an arch bearing a floral crown of great beauty with the remarkable inscription—“Aloha oe.”  

            The Queen was taken from the wharf in a beautiful, new, private carriage the recently acquired property of one of the pure crème de la crème of Hilo’s ancient snobocracy.

            As the royal party progressed along the streets under the triumphal arches, they passed many innocent little children dressed in clothes who were making mudpies in the road.

            The next day the Queen called on the King at the courthouse.  There she saw about thirty Japs fined in less than five minutes, and Her Majesty, expressed herself as much pleased with the performance.  Her Majesty made some remark about the Japs sometimes being killed.  The King, anxious to please Her Majesty, immediately ordered a Jap brought out; and killed him on the spot by a blow with a policeman’s club.  He died at once and Her Majesty was much amused.  At the conclusion of this entertainment a luau was served in the courthouse yard, but in deference to the prejudices of a missionary present, the Jap was not eaten.  There was a great abundance of other rich food.

            The Hilo people deserve great credit for the thorough and liberal manner of conducting the reception.  Three hundred dollars were given by the office-holders and two hundred by the plantations.  The skill and knowledge of the executive committee was displayed in the erection of the numerous arches.  They were constructed by inserting two bamboo poles in the ground and tying the tops together with plain twine, making a neat and cheap triumphal arch.  The committee saved in various little ways enough to declare a neat little dividend to those interested.---Long live the Queen!

 

GOVERNMENT LANDS.

                       

            While the policy should be to encourage the settlement and division of large tracts of lands for small holdings, and thus induce immigrants to become permanent settlers in the country, we see the government adopting a course the very opposite.  Large tracts are offered at auction for sale and for lease especially at a time when property values are on the decline, and when there are only a few purchasers with ready means to compete for them.  By this means an opportunity is given, seemingly understood, whereby all government property will soon be disposed of to undesirable purchasers,--those who will simply hold them for speculatse purposeiv or for other equally as selfish.  In a small kingdom where the area of culivatable land is limited, it is unwise for the government to dispose of all of its lands so as to became absorbed by a handful of capitalists.  it is a course that will prove ruinous and a source of future trouble.  The vexed question between land lord and tenant is attracting the study of the most sagacious minds throughout the world.  The matter is not as prominent in newly and sparsely settled countries; but in such countries as England and Ireland and nearly all the old and thickly populated states of Europe. the question is a vital one.  The disproportion in which the soil is held—contrary to what in justice it should be—is a source of unmitigated trouble to all the populous centers of the earth.  It is a burning question in Ireland to-day.  The misery and squalor of the poor people of that unfortunate country is due to no other cause as prominent as the absorbtion in which the lands were permitted to take place.  

            The most thrifty and wealthy people in the world, derived within its own borders, is unquestionably the republic of France.  Before this condition of prosperity was reached by that country the landed property of France was owned by a few landlords in immense estates—as we now see it in Ireland, England, and other countries, and in Hawaii. 

            These large estates were protected by law and could not be divided, so that no heirs or creditors could even partition them, a feeling which is general among the wealthy of all countries and in every age, and for which the rich here are aiming to obtain the power and to make just such laws as would of thi country to themselves and to their heirs forever, and if possible some would even like to make provisions to take it along with them when they die.

            But such a condition is not natural, and is bound to bring discord and eventually ruin to the urnrper.  The uneven distribution is sure

to bring anarchy in the end, and it is with this fear in view that we call the attention of the government against the evident result this wholesale and indiscriminate disposal of governments lands will lead to.

            It would be far better for some of our ministers to devote a little more time to the study of history and political economy, and less to foraging for their own self gratification and drop poker playing.

            Taking France as a type, we quote from Alison, vol. iv. p. 151. for the enlightenment of our ministry, whose devotion to sugar and cattle culture, excludes the possibility of a general knowledge in other matters, with the hope that the history and experience of other countries may enlarge heir views and secure good to the people of this country.

            “The confiscation of two-thirds of the landed property of the Kingdom, which arose from the decrees of the Convention against the emigrants, clergy, and persons convicted at the revolutionary tribunals,….placed funds worth above $700,0000,000 sterling at the disposal of the government.”

 

THE MINISTER AND PALI ROAD.

 

            It has been a matter of surprise and general comment, that so far no steps have been taken to begin the much prayed for and much needed Pali Road.  it is now well know that the reason for the delay is, that the Minister of the Interior has a pet road building, a Mr. Meyer, who has been employed building roads in Kona, Hawaii.  On account of the unequalled engineering skill displayed by the road builder, and the necessity of preserving all the strategic points for military purposes in the building of the Pali Road the work has been necessarily delayed until Mr. Meyer returned from Kona.  Who this Mr. Meyer is we have been unable to learn beyond being a stranger in the country, and possibly a relation of the Minister; but this we do know, that the Minister has added another well-earned thorn to his martyr’s crown.  There is no ignoring the fact, that the employment of  comparative strangers in preference to numbers of able and competent kamaainas, has not added any to the already lusterless official character in which the present Minister is generally esteemed in this community.  The refusal of this prodigy in road building, to employ natives of the country as laborers, places the Minister of the Interior in the same rank, with the Hawaiians, as the great Hawaiian philanthropist, Mr. Carter,--the latter by advocating  a burial to a living grave at the Leper Settlement of all the Hawaiians, and the former by refusing to give them employment and thus starve the “damned kanaka” to death, and in this manner ridding this rich inheritance, as a Joshua and a Caleb, of the already condemned uncircumcised Philistines.  We felt some misgivings in Mr. Spencer’s reappointment to his present position, fearing the octopus influence of his friend as it appeared to guide him, that for his credit it was better for him he were out.  By the admission of his colleagues and by his own acts, and those whom he appoints, we are sorry that our pet minister was not politically assassinated and his political lie sealed when at the pinnacle of its glory, with a martyred  philanthropist’s death, and on the political casket containing the list of a noble political career, as an epitaph, the following:

            Shrunk to this little measure.

            The once glorious Charles lies low.

 

ON DIT.

 

            That unless sour papers are mailed aboard the steamers they are not received at there destaintions.  It is about time that we got a change in the Post office.

 

            That the Leo notwithstanding the dirty way in which the missionaries and heir satellites try to boycott it rises Phoenix-like from the ashes with renewed vigor to continue the battle.

 

            That we again note with pleasure a growing tendency in our contemporary. the P. c. Advertiser to point out the weaknesses of the people, though in a very indirect manner, for instance by its criticism in its editorial and quotations from foreign, papers on the great tragedienne Sara.

 

            That the little Marquis of Iao takes his departure to-day for his cool and verdant Marquisate, disgusted that one of his political bedfellows positively refused to imbibe with him, all on account of unfulfilled promises.  Put not your trust in Marquises, Jack!

 

            That the little noble from the Valley, like a vermillion rose, has been anxiously looking towards Hong Kong, for his deputy, who is overdue; we trust in getting in the stuff that he and his confrere will get their just dues.

 

            that fired by the description of pour famous Hawaiian can-can, some of the foreign exotics now implanted in Hotel soil engaged a room on Punch Street, with four leimamo-girls and a eunuch (the male sex being strictly tabued) to thumb the taro-patch fiddle:  and that there the young ladies were initiated into the mystic cry of how to domesticated their eventual husbands.

 

A ROMANCE.

 

(CONTINUED.)

 

            When Nyama and his wife arrived at the hotel they saw a man standing by the door.  It was a tall man with a dark brown complexion.  he wore a blue suit adorned with rows of polished brass buttons, and a felt helmet on his head, he carried a club in his belt.  He was a policeman.

            Nyama looked at the giant with interest; the giant returned the gaze.  As our hero was passing the door he stretched out his great hand and seized him by the coat collar.

            “You come with me, I arrest you,” he said in a manner which showed that he was ready to take his prisoner bodily, willy-nilly.

            Faza gave a cry and clung to her husband’s neck, “What does he say? what does the creature want? oh, my dear!”

            “What do you mean,” demanded Nyama, “you are mistaken.  What do you arrest me for?”

            “You run away; you stop work.  Pretty soon you find out wasamatta.”

            Nyama put both his arms around Faza and tried to reassure her.  “Don’t be alarmed, my dear; is all a mistake.  It will soon be all right.  Don’t cry! I have not done anything to be arrested for.  I’ll soon be back.  I must go with this policeman, but I will be back in an hour.  go up stairs and wait for me.  Be a brave girl now,” and he kissed her tenderally and pulled away her arms from his neck, and pushed her gently away.

            “All right,” he said to the policeman, and they went.

            Faza ran wildly up the stairs, and bursting into their room, threw herself, face down, upon the bed and sobbed aloud.  It seemed to her that the sun had gone out and all ws darkness and despair.

            Nyama went with the policeman to a dingy little office down by the wharves among the forest of masts.  A dusty looking iron-grey man sat behind a battered desk.

            When Nyama stood before him he did not look up, but continued his writing.  After a minute Nyama became impatient and asked:

            “Do you know why this fellow has brought me here?  I can soon clear myself of any charge against me, and I will make somebody pay for this.”

            The man behind the desk paid not the slightest heed but wrote serenely on.  the policeman stood in the door.

            Nyama looked out of the dusty cobwebbed window for a few minutes, he was getting angry.   “Now, look here!” he cried, “this is a damned outrage.  I will have satisfaction for this.  It don’t become a gentleman to be kept waiting by a little, scribbling vice, deputy, assisgtant clerk.”

            Even this produced no effect on the man.  So Nyama gnashed his teeth and dropped into a chair and waited.

            At the expiration of half an hour the official arose, put away his books and papers shut and locked his desk and put on his coat and hat, then he spoke: “Are you No. 3781?  Name Nyama?” he asked.

            “My name is Nyama, but I am not a convict, nor a package of merchandise that I have a number,” replied the young man.

            “You came with the last lot of Japanese didn’t you?”

            “Yes, but-----“ began Nyama.

            “Take him to Sand Island,” broke in the official, speaking to the policeman, and walked out of the door and away.

            The policeman motioned to his prisoner to follow, and led the way to the wharf.  The sun was low and shone in their faces as they looked toward the sea.  Sea and sky were on fire with the reflected light of the setting sun.  The policeman motioned to a row boat lying by the wharf with the stalwart oarsman sleeping in the bottom.

(To be Continued).