Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 394, 22 February 1892 — Page 4
| This text was transcribed by: | Lyn Kuda |
| This work is dedicated to: | Awaiaulu |
KA LEO O KA LAHUI.
"E Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono."
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KA LEO.
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John E. Bush.
Luna Hooponopono a m e Puuku.
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MONDAY, FEB. 21. 1892.
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WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY.
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To-day will be celebrated the birthday of this great champion of universal right, and foe of oppression. The principal celebration of the day will be kept on board of the U.S.S. Pensacola for which occasion invitations have been extended to a large company of our townspeople. Boats for the accommodation of the guests will be in waiting at the landing, Brewer's Wharf from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., when those invited will present their viaiting cards to the officers in charge at the wharf.
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PLURAL VOTING.
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We have a constitution which declares that all men are free an equal, but practically it operates int he directin of creating an aristocracy. The belief that property and wages at $50 dollars a month ro more, are the passports to respectability and political power, has become a deep-rooted superstition, and the individual who does nto own three thousand dollars worth of property, or command fifty dollars a month as a wages serf, is looked down upon by the upper five hundred, with the same loathing and scorn as the feudal dignitary of old looked down on the unconsidered member of the common herd.
The outward and visible grovel to the god of property can be seen at every registration before an election. It is then that the son of the soil whose property is rated at less than $3000 and who spends his time on his own kuleana instead of working for a planter, is made to feel his humiliation. To work on his own land and raise food from it for his own family, is of no accuont compared with the dignity of being a clerk or some other piece of wages mechanism, hried for $50 a month. The effect is about the same as dividing the adult male population into so many dukes and so many common people.
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Possibly it may be, that only a few among the most retropressive of Reform Tories, venture to think coherently that the man who possesses property is necessarily better or wiser, more moral or mroe patriotic, than the manwho does nto. To put the idea into shape would be to give the lie direct to Jesus Christ and all the Apostles, to repudiate the whole theory of the Churches, to jump upon and blast Christianity in general; and to go back on the teachings of all the philosophers from Diogenes and Moses down to Henry George; and even the common or garden groveller, seldom ventures to formulate his creed in words.
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The old hoary gag about the man who has "a stake in the country" hardly applies to the dude who boards at the Chinese hash house and owes for his last weeks board, or for the man who is mortgaged to a bank, for ten thousand dollars which would nto be worth foreclosing. The person with the "stake" is too often but an exploded sham whose nett assets if realized on would be about a manure heap and a goat, and the other party with the "stake" aforesaid, is too often a person who has money to bolt with or get out of the way whenever his country wanted him. The fact is that the Tories of the Reform Party who played democrat in 1887, have nto had time to unroll their charter and examine it in the light of this present century. To persist in maintaining the present system of plural voting is an attempt to rule the country by a cabal, which it is int he power of the people to thwart.
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FINANCIAL.
(No. 4.)
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(Continued.)
Under such circumstances as these it is the duty and privilege of the government to step in and adopt such financial measures to relieve the stringency in the money market and assist the homesteader and the farmer to protect his home and his industry from the rapaciousness and usurous assessments of the uncontrolled capitalist. Every man should have equal chances with his securities to obtain that unusually necessary commodity--money--free from the indignities and caprice of the soulless money lender.
What then shall be done to ameliorate the situation here? The first and most preeminent necessity is to obtain more available capital. This would not be a necessity, had the millions of dollars which have been made here in sugar been retained for investment in this country. But our avaricious and unpatriotic sugar men have invested the bulk of their profits in foreign lands and left here a void fo capital which is a serious handicap to the borrower, a draw back to all projected enterprises, and rendres impossible the development of our natural resources. How shall we obtain capital and how shall it be applied.
The government in the legitimate exercise of its privileges and of its duties to the people should be authorized by the Legislature to negotiate a loan up to a certain fixed limit, for a certain specified object. First to the encouragement of railroads, homesteads, repopulation, and the encouragement through an agricultural bureau of diversified farming industries and facilitating the partition and occupancy of the public lands for this purpose. The beneficial result from such a judicious investment of the funds are too evident to need further elucidation.
The second object which we have in view to which such a government loan should be devoted is the establishment of a bureau in the Department of Finance to be known as the Land Loan Bureau. The object of this bureau would be to loan out money to farmers or land-owners at a low fixed rate of interest upon agricultural lands or homesteads in volume equal to one half their assessed valuation, independent of perishable improvements. Their scheme is something similar to that which the farmers of America are clamoring for, with the better merit however, that we recommend loans only upon land, and that actual coins or its paper representative be used, rather than a [x]at currency issued on the basis of the value of the land.
A financial scheme of this kind would provide abundance of money for all legitimate needs,a nd would render the people independent of the personal favor of the more than often oppressive money lender. Every man with property would have equal right to enter the government bureau, and with the payment of a few inexpensive [xxx]s, obtain a loan on his land at a comparatively low rate of interest and without extortion. It would be his equal privilege with every other citizen, and there would be no need to stultify himself or for any ignoble truculency or subserviency to the monied aristocrats.
The timel ies gone by whent he money-lenders and capitalists are to monopolize the use of money. It is a necessary commodity and it is nto just that any class of men should have the poewr to extort usurous interest from borrowers, and as ar esult, to entail bankruptcy and ruin. The industrial classes have ar ight to ask the nation to employ its resources and credit in aid of the industry and enterprise that arrises only from labor employed in agricultural and commercial industries, without being handicapped by the arbitrary will of irresponsible money lenders.
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The Transient Nature of the Hawaiian Monarchy.
[No. 3.]
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(Continued).
Some seven years ago there appeared in one of our local perodicals an article entitled "The political and Social Future of Hawaii". This article attracted considerable attention at the time,b oth fromt he independence of its thoughts and the clear and forcible manner in which they were expressed. The following quotations will show the author's views upon a phase of the subject whose importance has certainly nto diminished int he years that have since elapsed.
"Thirty years ago this was a nation of Polynesians, which, though greatly reduced in numbers, still maintained much strength of national life, and a loyal clinging to their old chieftaincy. At that time the hereditary native monarchy was the natural and desirable political form, and for the native people any other was scarcely possible".
"In this ninth decade of the century we find a great change is going on and growing apace. * * * With a preponderating foreign population we still have, and under very favourable circumstances of able and honest administration, we may continue for some time longer to have, a monarchy with a sovereign of the ancient native Alii lineage. But this order of things is manifestly transient and in the ruthless logic of inevitable tendencies, is going on towards a change."
"It is difficult to understand hwo any one can suppose the Hawaiian Kingship to be other than a very transient institution. Under the conditions in which it exists, it is a most unique and unparaleled political arrangement and due to a wholly exceptional combination of circumstances. * * * The base of the throne is decayed, and no severe shock will be awaited to topple it over. As in due time the native sovereignty comes to its natural end, whether by the decay of the native people, by the lack of chiefs, or a general end of its usefulness, there will cease to be any other possible rallying point for a throne , even if there were any further call for such an institution."
"How long before the inevitable change occurs, will depend much upon the degree of carful, reasonable and economical administration that the monarchy may continue to afford. Failure in this will merely precipitate the change that might otherwise have been usefully delayed. How the transition when ti comes will be effected, and the necessary constitutional alterations made, ti does not concern us now to inquire. When the time is ripe and the necessity imperative, a sober and elightened community will readily accomplish the change."
These are surely words of truth and wisdom. As such they deserve to be pondered by all, especially by Hawaiians. However repugnant such ideas may have been to the interests of some, and to the feeling and prejudices of others when first published, the facts on which they were based were so notorious, and the arguments so well put, that no serious attempt was ever made to meet either the one or the other.
If the essentially transient nature of the Hawaiian monarchy was not only a reasonable, but almost a necessary conclusion seven years ago, what is the outlook at the present time? Has anything occurred int eh interval to strengthen the hold of the monarchical idea upon either the feeling or the intelligence of any portion of the community? Has the monarchy during the time named, reaped any honors, achieved any legitimate successes, or done anything whatever to strengthen its claim to permanence? To these and all questions of similar import there can be but one reply, and that is an emphatic negative. The "favorable circumstances of able and honest administration" and the "degree of carful, reasonable and economical administration" which were laid down as essential conditions of the continuance of the monarchy are not being realized. Instead of any prospect of improvement, the influence not dominant at head quarters are such that their continued supremacy means a surea nd rapid decent fromb ad tow orse. The monarchy gives no evidence fo increasing influence, augmenting dignity or improving character. ont he contrary, there has been a distinct decline in all these particulars. Just how long this decline can go on without reaching the inevitable end is of course, what no one can certainlyt ell. But no can[x]id student of the current Hawaiian history can fail to see that the course of events has been, and now is, running steadily in the one direction, and that toward democratic institutions. Int he language of the article above quoted, "the base of the throne is decayed, and no severe shock willb e awaited to topple it over."
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ON DIT.
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That though Walsh has failed as a sugar luna, and will doubtless be failed as a lawyer, he will [xxx]bly succeeded at the good old game of holding a thunderer.
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That the remains of the Reform Campaign monetary contriburions, are developing on the surface, in building the real estate market, byt he boodlers--of the National Party. Who can say now that Bwoler and McQuinn wasn't in it.
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That Buffalo Sam and his two quondam friends Bill and Samuel are expected to return to town by the next steamer.
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That "Were it not for the Chinese teh Court might take nine months vacation in the year," so says the Bulletin, and yet it supports a Ministry that favors feeding the country with Chinese slaves.
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That the prospects of profitable business int he future is forcing some of our business men to learn billiards from Mr. ben Saylor. There are a great many of our young men the inpoker, chefa and opium games, all of which occupations are full of great risk to health and wealth.
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PROTECTION TO THE LABOURING CLASSES
9. We shall endorse all measure tending to improve the condition of the working classes, and consequently, without injuring any vested rights, we willa dvocate laws to prevent all further importations or employment of contract-labor of any kind, upon conditions which will bring it into a ruinous and degrading competition with free Hawaiian or white labor. WE shall also, int he itnerest of the better protection of the poor, ask for mroe liberal exemption of their property from forced sale on execution, and from seizure in bankruptcy proceeding.
SMALL FARMING AND HOME STEADS.
10. The wealthy fraction of our population have hitherto prevented the development of an independent class of citizens; the public lands have been acquired and have been tied up in a few hands or parcelled to suit favorites, and small farmers and planters have been driven out by corporations or combinations of capitalists; but as small farming is conducive to the stability of the State, it shouldb e encouraged by a new and more liberal Homestead act, by which the ownership of small tracts of land and the settlement thereon of families of our present population,--and especialily of the native Hawaiians who have been left almost homeless in there country-should be rendered possible. To that end, the Government and Crown lands, (in so far as can be done without invading vested rights) should be devoted as soon as possible to homesteads, and conferred upon bona-fide settlers free of taxes for a limited period.
It should be the further aim of government to, at once, as far improve the means of transportation,--local, national and international,--as to provide, in all the districts, cheap means of conveying the product of the soil to market.
ELECTORAL RIHGT.
11. We hold that upright and honest manhood, and not the possession of wealth, arbitrarily fixed, should consti- the right to vote for nobles as well as representatives, and no more power should be accorded to the ballot of the rich man than to the ballot of the poor man. The discrimination in favor of wealth now made in our Constitution is contrary to all the eternal principles of right and justice, and must be abolished. To this end, we will favor a leveling of the present distinction of wealth and classes which blemish our laws with respect of the right to vote for nobles, thereby restoring to the native Hawaiians privileges which pertaint o them in their own country, and of which they have been unjustly deprived.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
12. We favor the expenditure of sufficient sums to secure a number of needed public improvements on Oahu and other Islands: school, railroads and harbors and wharves, public light, and also a thorough system of reservoirs and water-works, not only for Honolulu, but through-out the other Islands.