Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 315, 3 Nowemapa 1891 — That Burning Question. [ARTICLE]

That Burning Question.

To the miads of the majoritj of our community, the onlv "burD- : questioii of the day to them, « rms to be that whieh anpertains to ; isbor diffieuities of our plant ,itians. ītis true, that the labor »l uestion is aiU«iportant one, here as v.' ; ; .s eisewh(ye in the wide-world. , .r that ō.oe? not by any me> r ins Miuke it the only burning question ihat affects Hawaii nei, or that takes ih) aIJ room for thougnt in the :>nnds of all thinking men. No. by )io means. There are other questions of equal and of greater importance tbān the labor question. The subject of good morals, of religion r of heālth and educaLon, and industry are far in advance of the hil)or question in importance. They are the foundation upon whieh everything that appertains to the whole superstructureof governrnont h ings; tbat whieh applies to the weliiie of tbe Nalion. The greatest of tli <;se is the proper training of the peoplein good morals, or in true r«ligion. The scoffer may smile at what we say ; and yet no nation. dare deny or ignore this fact. Every n.ition, and from thence downward ~> the family and to the individual, Hould retrograde into darkness, lapse into heathenism and decay, ."d pass away, as many a people ,'iave who have stood formost in iha svorld, whose history every *<-hool boy is familiar with. Assyria. i' ;bylon, Medeo-Perflia, Rome. and hereare they to-day. All have pase- - d away, throupfh the laek of the first :id greatest of principles-good mor-

>! No matter how great the knowK(]ge learniug the men of a uat;ion may be, lacking in this one elen\ent of what constitutes greatness, iiiey heeome fools in their owneon- • a it». Thus it has been from the lK*gimiing and thus will thehistOry oL' nalione bc who iinooi'e this oue principle. until the ushering in .of 9 regcncration of all things. In the iaee of histoncal fllcts, whichinitß repetition, ahoulu erc ihia have niaUo u? wise m the ad{vunistration of our aifair.s, we shonld scck to build our countrv :ind thc tx»ople ? s wel?-irc upon inati ra of secoiidary iiiiportauce, is what incomprchcusil>lc to us. Wo liavcg<XKi and \vis<* nien smo»2 yet sudi ir the trath. Tbcv «eek to build U)k»n a course Uetrimont:U t »thc truc prof?pcrity M thc ee.n.inuruty or whieh on)r covcrs their iiwn i£terest/te)uporarily. tor our ills c«t'unot lv-

made by temporizing witli expedients. We must strike at tbe root of tbe evil, and apply such remedies as knowledge. and experience gives us are ihe proper correctives to be used. We fcel sanguine if the right remedies had been apnlied thirty or forty years ago no dearth of laborcrs would exist tp-

day in this country. But the difficulty was then, as it is in our time, that we seek only for immediate relief and not for permane*ti As we have said before, this cannot be effected by I any one-sided or half measures. *, We start in take steps for immediate wants, and as soon as we are made~ easy, we lapse into a condition of indifference. of unwillingness to go on any further in doing the real work* i\ e., to make permanent improvements in tbe Sndition of our population by filding them up in whatever they laek. Had this been done honestly and in real earnest. H is our beiief that we woula have here to-day a superior elaaa of laborers to any that we could import, and practically eheaper. B.ut the trouble has always been that the government has been used »s an expedient to further the intereßt lst the monoy lender, and 2nd thc Sugar Planter, 3rd the Minister doing the bnsiness, without anv consideration whatever as to the future of the country or to the, incoming immigrant's fitness moralty and physically as an upbuiider to our population. frcm whom after thirty or forty years of culture, amalgation and aeelimatization, we would have a labor population to the manor born, in stead of this ever recurring ' burning'' qnestion of s»pplying laborers to make a iew nien rich at tbe cost of the substantial prosperity of the country.

This %urning" question reniiu(is us of the cry of wolf, wolf, wolf; the false cry. we feel assured has eome onee too ofteu. The treatmeut of thesa "burning' ? questions are inexhaustible, and should be taken up by men who are specially paid a lar?e salar3* to give their time and attention to studv and solve the problem, instead of leaving the matter as appears, entire!y to tlie classes or masters on the oae hand and to the masses or laboring men on the other, and not go junketing two-thirds of their time throoghput the group.