Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 203, 28 May 1891 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

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

 

KA LEO.

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1891.

 

NOTICE.

Copies of the KA LEO O KA LAHUI can be found every morning at both the News Agencies in town. Price 5 cents a copy.

 

THE TREND OF GOVERNMENTS.

Lord Saulsbury at a political gathering said, about two years ago, that in five years time, there would hardly be a ruler then in Europe, or@ its legitimate successor, who would be seated on the throne of their ancestors. When we read this prophetic speech, we readily saw the correctness of the British statesman's opinion, though drawn from different sources.  Prophecy has already foretold such a change. The unanimity of profane and prophetic students in the near approach of these peculiar changes is what may appear strange to us now. To the prayerful and inspired student of DIvine history, the time foretold when these and other evidences shall appear, can readily be seen by a close  comparison of current events with the sure word of proshecy.

As in times past, so will it ever be, that men will develop, perform their part in fulfullment of God's will, and pass away after their alloted tasks have been done. It was left to different men and at different periods to make certain discoveries for the use of mankind, not because of man's greater superiority at one period than at another, but in accordance with a superior power, a power capable of producing these effects by the slow process of natural evolution, or by its Divine will, and that power is the Creator, the Great Architect of the Universe, whom even the humblest and least learned of the human family instinctively acknowledges.

By the mails we hear of a man in the employ of a service entirely at variance with that of a teacher whose profession is to teach the advent doctrine, a second time announce, not by simple guess work, but by deep research and study from prophetic and profane history, his unqualified belief in the soon appearing and fulfillment of the Christmas hope - the world's Redeemer.

Lieut. C. A. L. Totten, of the U. S. Army, a man chosen as a military lecturer in the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, for his ability and scholarly attainments, by his government, becomes a humble and fearless witness of the truth of bible history, and boldly says that the end of the world is near at hand.

Men moved by inward conviction lead of holy desire to do right have been chosen to be the witnesses of divine messages of importance from God to his creatures. Noah was a man called of God as an example of righteousness to the ante-diluvians; for one hundred and twenty years he was a preacher sent to the ungrateful man to call him to repentance from his ungodly lusts; the warning voice and the holy and unwearied example during this long period was daily set before the people of that age unheeded until destruction swept them in the hardness of their unbelief. John the Baptist, had a message to  proclaim before the chosen people of God, as foretold in the spirit of Elias, as a forerunner of good and evil to them from a Beneficient Creator of his love for his creatures through faith in a Reedemer, who was soon to appear as a propitaition for man's transgression of God's immutable law. The truth was manifested to the Jewish nation in the flesh ans was rejected for which we have as a living testimony the scattering of a whole nation, whose history and marked distinctions of character no one can deny.

Since 1844, we have had the Advent teachers, proclaiming what they claim from the Bible as the last message to mankind of the close of probation, the purification and regeneration of all things, dating with the second advent.

Spurgeon, Talmage and other eminent preachers, have called the attention of the Christian world to this momentous fact.  We believe that the next year or two will bring out more advocates of this doctrine, and in the same ratio a counter delusive power, such as contended with Moses before Pharoah.

We are strong advent believers, and we have received our doctrine yb grace and by faith, confirmed by a close and prayerful seeking after the truth. More men with the spirit of the prophets will, we feel assured, crop out here and there endowed with the same fearlessness for declaring what is right and opposing what is wrong.

We expect, among the unfulfilled prophecies, a change in the constitution of the United States to take place in a few years, and the power of the woman in purple and scarlet and gold set up for a little while; a fulfillment of the last verse in Dan. 11, by the Turks being forced to retire to Jerusalem as their last stronghold by Russia, when the final will come about in the manner described in the first part of Dan. 12, beginning with a scramble for that territory just vacated by the Turks, and termed biblically the king or kingdom of the North, the culmination of which will be the setting up of that fifth universal kingdom that will stand for ever.

We hope that our readers will see and embrace these signs in the same spirit as we do.

 

THE VANISHING CONSIDERATION.

The United States has been trading with its neighbors, selling them a kind of golden talisman which has the wonderful and valuable quality of vanishing from the hands of its purchaser and returning to its master after having served to bind the bargain and secure the desired results.

If several of the sugar producing countries are allowed to sell their product in American markets without, duty, whether by free trade or by reciprocity, the competition and over-production will render the business unprofitable.

If now appears certain that Hawaii will not only have to suffer from temporary free trade: but, if we continue our relations with the U. S. we shall always have to compete with Cuba, Barbad@es, Guiana, Brazil and many other countries where labor and land is cheaper than they can ever possibly be here.

The sugar industy is in a bad way. The real curse of the trouble is this: Sugar is grown in all tropical countries by what is practically slave labor, this is, unpaid labour, that receives only enough to keep the body in working condition. Whether a slaves receives the food direct or a coolie receives a few cents to buy it with, makes no important difference. They work like cattle for the bare privilege of existing. A man works under coersion whether under the whip of under stress of hunger. It is the same in fact, if a man is compelled to work or starve or has the choice of working or going to jail as men have in Hawaii.

When in 1835, slavery was formally abolished in the British West Indies the price of sugar rose somewhat. But the slaves were not to be liberated till seven years afterward, for which time they had been apprenticed to their old masters, during which time there was a chance to work them to death without the loss that would otherwise accured from the loss of a valuable chattle. Then followed the liberation of slaves in Cuba that advanced the price of sugar and stimulated the industry in other parts of the world. The price of sugar would have always kept up if means of evading the spirit of the slave laws had been invented speedily. In all small countries where the planters could control the government, peculiar labor laws were enacted and the manner of construing and enforcing them was more peculiar. Indian coolies began to be shipped to plantations, and Chinese coolies were bought and sold by shiploads in the different planting countries. England and America tried to put a stop to the coolie trade, but after running under ground for a while it reappeared as the contract labor system and so it continues till the present day.

No country where labor is paid can compete with slave owing countries in the production of sugar. The best sugar industry has never shown the ability to exist without the stimulation of a bounty.

By great good fortune our sugar was admitted in to the U. S. and protected from the competition of unpaid labor. From which we had a right to expect a better order of things and advantages to our people. Instead of this the whole profit went into the hand of the few capitalists; and we are cursed with a coolie labor system nearly as bad as that of Chili enforced in the same way - by laws and courts that look all right but work all wrong.

If the sugar industry were not already hear we would pray that it might never blight the land, but being here we should use every endeavor to prevent us from sinking quite to the level of countries where laborers are guarded night and day by government soldiers.

 

A LITERARY ARTIST.

Monday the Bulletin started out in its editorial column on the subject of  Queen Victoria's birthday, appearantly, and after meandering around unsteadily for a while wandered off into incoherent twadbdle about politicians ruining the country, civil-disposed scribblers, and the elements of the usual Johnsonian editorial in a badly jumbled state. The style of these essays is like the contortions of a broken-backed centipede. We have suspected ever since a certain "cat" article appeared that the editor was writing under the inspiration of ethyl-hydroxide, vulgarly called tangle-foot. But the stock-holders should interfere to protect their financial interests by preventing him from writing editorials when the tangle is on.

 

A ROMANCE.

THE PARADISE OF THE PACIFIC, OR THE DEVIL'S KULEANA.

(CONTINUED)

Soon the throb of the engines was felt and the jar of machinery. The vessel was moving. The stench of three hundred reeking and not overly clean bodies soon became unbearable. The heat was intense.

After a while the ship began to roll and pitch and toss. She stood first on one end and then on the other. Then she would take a roll as if she had full made up her mind to make a complete revolution. The passengers were tossed from side to side. Nyama insisted on their sitting or lying down so as not to tramp on and smother the sick on the floor. Though they had been seasoned as to sea sickness, many now began to reach and vomit - over the floor and over each other. The smell, the heat and the bad air, were more than any mortal could bear.

Nyama sat down on the filthy floor and supported Faza's head on his lap. He fought away the half naked bodies of men that crowded upon them. They had no idea how long the journey was to last; they would have dispaired had they known.

So, for two days they lay, almost dead, without food or water. It is true water was passed in buckets, but it was mostly spilled and lost, wetting the wretched voyagers, and boiled rice was distributed which they could not eat. Every minute was long and slow with its load of distress and misery, and the two days seemed an age.

At last, when they had all but dispaired, the jar of machinery ceased, the anchors went over the side with a great rattle and splash. The door in the vessel's side was opened, and at last they felt the fresh air again.

A boat was along side and the immigrants crowded in as fast as they could. It took two or three hours to unload the human freight. Nyama and Faza secured a seat in one of the boats after sometime, and were rowed to land.

The sky was dark with rain clouds. Great sweeping waves rolled in to the shore and there exploded in cascades of white spray and black sand. The boat was tossed about like a cork on the heavy sea. Four native pulled with a force that made the long oars bend like whips. Through the mist and flying spray they saw a long, low black beach with a fringe of vegetation, and desultory groups of cocoanut trees with their green tassels swinging at the top of their lofty, slender stems. Faza turned away her eyes from the angry, vicious waters and clung to her husband with a sense of faith and comfort as great and as enexplicable as the consolation many people derive from religious worship.

Soon the boat was alongside a low weather stained, sea-beaten building standing out into the bay on a skeleton, stringy structure of iron bars and braces. The violence of the waves was so great that it was only after repeated efforts that the boat was made fast to the wharf. It still rose and fell so far and so rapidly that the nervous scared and exhausted freight was not able to unload itself.

But a great black giant in a policeman's uniform came down the stairway to the level of the boat as it swang by on each incoming wave. Holding by one hand to the railing, he stretched out his long arm and seized one of the Japs, by arm or neck, clothes or hair, and yanked him on to the wharf. They all got out in a marvellously short time without comprehending exactly how.

Nyama waited to the last and then lifted Faza up to the grim ex-savage, who seeing her pretty girlish face and slight figure loosened his hold on the rail and carried her up the steps and put her down carefully on a pile of grain sacks.  Nyama followed, and said, "thank you," to the policeman who was standing looking at Faza who had sunk all limp and helpless to the floor and rested her head on the pile of sacks.

"That you wahine?" asked the giant turning to Nyama. Nyama assented.

"I think just now much sick," continued the native.

"Yes," said Nyama, "can you show us a place to rest and get something to eat?"

"No;" was the reply, "Jap no go outside, all stop here; byumby go Hardrow."

"Where is Hardrow: How far is it?"

"Oh, maybe, about ten mile. Bad place you come just now, I thing."

"How do we go? We cannot walk ten miles,"

"You walk, awsame," and the giant laughed

"Plenty mud; too much rain jus' now."

"Well, where is the boss, I want to speak to him," continued Nyama.

"Oh, me aw same boss jus' now, what you want?"

"We want something to eat first and a place to rest. We want to get our things off the steamer," replied Nyama.

"Japanese no eat jus' now. Suppose you got money, I go along show you one place stop eat."

"All right" said Nyama gladly. And raising his wife to her feet, encouraged her to be strong and try to walk" She was very sick and weak but leaning on her husband's arm she managed to get along.

They followed the tall policeman out of the crowd of Japanese and on to the solid ground. They passed several stems of cocoanut trees with their heads out of sight away up in the misty atmosphere, some dismembered fences, and ugly yellow building labeled "Custom House - Post Office," then they came to a row of rusty, black, slimy rotten wooden buildings of all sizes and shapes and conditions of decay and delapedation. On the corner was a wide, low one storied house with a shed or porch extending on two sides of it so near the sidewalk as to give it an air of a sullen man with a bad conscience who pulled his hat away down over his eyes. By the door was a blackboard bearing in chalk the inscriptions, "Allegator pears for sale here." The next was a two story building with a slender veranda in front higher than the side walk, and looking as if it were in the last stages of consumption. Their guide ascended the two broken steps, and they followed him into a narrow dingy little room with counter on one side but nothing displayed behind it but the proprietor himself, a Chinaman in European clothes, his queue hid under a broad-brimmed straw hat worn over one ear with a slumy swaggering air.

Nyama told him what they wanted. He turned leisurally to a door behind and shouted at the top of his voice some order or direction to what was probably the kitchen and its occupant.

Then he motioned his quests into a small side room where they found a table and a chairs. The table was covered with cloth that seemed once to have had an ambition to be white but had fallen far short of its ideal; for it was no bespattered with yellow of eggs, brown of coffee, red of beets, and grease and finger marks @@ @@@@@. The man from the kitchen appeared loaded with dishes which he cast one after the other upon the table with a flourish. They were looking at the assortment of edibles when the tall figure of the policeman obscured the light of the door. He looked indignant.

"Wah-aa-ma-tah," he exclaimed. "You think all day I pick up Japanese, I no like eat? What for I come up here."

(To be Continued.)