Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 415, 22 March 1892 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

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

 

KA LEO.

John E. Bush.

I una Hooponopono a me Puuku.

Tuesday, March 22, 1892.

 

IS SUGAR PROFITABLE

            At three and one-half cents a pound we believe that in most localities where sugar is raised in this country, sugar can be made profitable.  Taking a comparative view of our soil and situation to a ready and increasing market, with other sugar producing countries, we are satisfied that a fair margin of profit can be made from sugar for both planter and mill owner.  The difficulty with us, who live in this fruitful and highly favored country, is in the manner in which the business of raising cane and producing sugar is done.  Men with a little capital, in more senses than one, look around and imagine they see in a small tract of available sugar land with a large portion which they think is as good, an opportunity for an investment and an easy fortune within reach in a short time.  They start in on a small capital, generally about enough to plant seed cane to begin with; then they commence to borrow money from capitalists, who are equally as incompetent as to the nature of the investment, except the general concluseon that sugar is profitable even when handled by a fool.  A mill is ordered and put up after the first crop of cane is dried up--sometimes after the second--then the cane, which is only fit for fuel, is taken off at a loss, adding to the debt of the plantation, which has reached about one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand dollars, and before another crop is ready another one hundred thousand dollars has been added.  The mill is either too small or too large, generally the former and has to be replaced, at a dead loss of say seventy or eighty thousand dollars more.  Just as the plantation is looking up, the agent or parasite, starts in by keeping the property in debt and with only sufficent life to keep him and his advances safe.  Under these circumstances most of our plantations have been started, and nothing but the grace of God working on the generosity of the American people could ever have enabled them to save themselves from the octopus arms of the capitalists, which is the case with a few of our plantations to day.  No plantation can be run thus and made to pay.

            But, as we have stated at the beginning, we believe, that sugar culture, even at seventy dollars a ton, started on a sufficent capital by men who know how, (not lawyers, bootmakers, and glass-blowers.) the business can be made profitable and success doubly assured, if managed on the cooperative plan instead of the worse than slavery system now in vogue.

 

Socialistic Tendencies.

            In the eyes of the Bulletin we stand convicted of indulging in "socialist @ rhotomontade" and we willingly meet the charge of our contemporary by pleading guilty to a socialistic leaning.  Socialism, is the bogey-man of the monopolist who is saturated with the immoral principles of our commercial system, and when the men who own the earth combine--as they invariably do for the purpose of entrenching themselves in their strongholds of aggression on the rest of humanity, one of their first act is to secure the press and to hire brains which will denounce socialism.

            It is a fact reiterated in these columns, that our small community is honeycombed with trusts.  Certain capitalists are combined here to hold control of food supplies, the means of transport, and as a well known fact the entire newspaper press also, outside of KA LEO, is owned by and run in the interests of monopolistic stockholders.  The one constant dread of the monopolist is free speech, and by buying up newspapers he does his puny best to muzzle public opinion.  Their the monopolistic newspaper boasts that it is always respectable and choice@n diction, as indeed the representative of wealth and cultured leisure should be, and the unlifting of its kid-gloved editorial hand is considered sufficient to silence the dependent proletariat.

            But the aim of the people to bring about a greater equality of social conditions which is the basis of socialism has come to stay.  The mourning of the people under the petty hand of exploiters of the poor may endure for a night, but the joy of brighter morning is breaking; for our faith, our reason, our knowledge tell us that the great evolutionary forces are with the people.  The constant presence of a vast mass of human misery arising from the monopoly of the sources of wealth and the capitalistic exactions levied upon Labor is here, as elsewhere, generating even in the educated classes, a deep discontent and a spiritual unrest, which all the palaver of professional sophistry is powerless to influence.

            The masses in this country will have no confidence in the administration of its affairs by Ring and Trust makers and owners.  The Konohiki and the exacting Crown Lands lessee and the usurer and the land shark and slave owner, may have their morning and evening organs of the press; but as the representative of class privilege the people object to the direction of their interests by such a brood, even if the Bulletin Konohiki, and the Advertiser usurer and slave owner, agree among themselves to take turns about the political helm.

            Socialism is the common holding of the means of production and exchange, and the holding of them for the equal benefit of all, and to this goal humanity is marching with firm and resolute step.  Konohiki, and slave owner, be assured of the fact!

 

THOSE CHINESE PASSPORTS.

            We give the following correspondence in reference to a subject of va@@ moment to the community.  It will be seen by the reply of the Collector General that the request in the letter of the complainant that he should get "a hearing face to face with the persons whose names I mentioned."  was not complied with, the reasons for which do not appear in the answer.  We leave the correspondence, without further comment, to speak for itself:

Bureau of Customs,

Honolulu, Mar. 16, 1892.

J.A. MAGOON, Esq.,            City

            SIR:  I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 15th inst., and would state that I held an investigation on Monday morning in the presence of Mr. Alee, the Chinese Commercial Agent.  I told you on Saturday when you called at 11 o'clock that I would investigate the matter.

            I do not find that any money was received improperly or retained by Young Nap, and the prohibiting of conversation between the passengers and men from shore was done by order of the Port Surveyor which was very proper.

            I beg to remain yours most respectfully,

A.S. CLEGHORN

Collector General.

 

Hon. A.S. CLEGHORN,

Collector General.

            SIR:  I am obliged to call your attention to the conduct of one, Young Nap, interpreter for the Port Surveyor, with reference to his statement on the treatment of certain Chinese who came to this country on the last trip of the steamship "Belgic."

            I went out to the Belgic on the 8th inst., a little before 8 p.m. in the evening at which time Young Nap made himself very objectionable by trying to prohibit conversation between those in our boat and the Chinese passengers on the ship.  He asked the Board of Health guard to stop any such conversation as it interfered with his duty, when as a matter of fact he had nothing to do but to ask individual passengers under the instructions of the Port Surveyor with reference to their permits.  It seems that there were forty passengers by the Belgic who either had no permits at all or whose permits were irregular.  At about 8:30 o'clock that evening, Young Nap went to the office of Chulan & Co., so I am informed by C. Alee, and there exacted from the friends of the Chinese on board, twenty-five dollars for each man with the statement that if the same should not be paid at once these forty men would be return to China by the Belgic which would sail that same night about 12 o'clock.  The money was then paid, according to Mr. Alee's statement to me made before witnesses, to the Clerk of Chulan & Co.

            Young Nap represented to the friends of those on board that he had the power of preventing their being taken back to China and this money was paid only under such representations.  This was done while Young Nap was wearing the Custom House badge and apparently acting with the approval of the Port Surveyor.  The persons who paid the money were afraid that Young Nap did not possess the power that he claimed and to satisfy them on this point he stated that he would leave the money at the office of Chulan & Co. until the next day and if the men did not come ashore the money would be refunded.

            The next morning, Alee tells me Young Nap or Loo Chit Sam, who was acting in conjunction with Young Nap, came to the office and took the money away.  About 11 o'clock just before the vessel sailed, Loo Chit Sam went to the house of one, C.K. Ai, who had obtained a permit to land from the Foreign Office for a friend of his on board the Belgic, and stated to Ai that the permit was good for nothing and that if he did not want his friend to be taken back to the Belgic he must pay him twenty-five dollars.  This Ai agreed to do and Loo Chit Sam went the next day to Ai's office to collect the money.  Ai refused to pay it before consulting me with reference to the matter.  I obtained this permit for Ai by filing a bond which was perfectly regular, and before leaving the steamer, I had pointed out to the Port Surveyor the person for whom the permit was intended in the presence of Young Nap, and all was arranged that he should come on shore.  Loo Chit Sam could not possible have obtained information on this matter excepting through Young Nap.  That the whole scheme was one for the purpose of extorting money under color of the law is perfectly apparent when it is known that the Port Surveyor has no authority to allow any Chinese to land who has no permit personal to himself.  Either these men had permits under which the Port Surveyor could allow them to land or they had none and should not have been permitted to land.

            In the first case if money was obtained from these persons when they were furnished with permits for the privilege of permitting them to land, it was a gross outrage, or in the second place, if it was paid for the privilege of permitting them the land when they were not so provided with permits, it is a violation of the law and makes those liable who are concerned in the matter, to severe punishment.

            I call your attention to this matter on Saturday with the hope that you would at least investigate the matter and give me a hearing face to face with the persons whose names I mentioned, but as Young Nap still continues to be interpreter for the Port Surveyor I am bound to believe that you consider the matter too trifling for your attention.  I had not intended to say anything to impeach Mr. Crabbe the Port Surveyor but as he insist in upholding Young Nap in this unlawful transaction, it has a very bad look to say the least as far as he is concerned.  Mr. Crabbe tried to smooth the matter over the other day in your presence by the statement that the money had been returned.  This does not affect the matter at all, the fact that the money has been taken is where the breach of the law comes in.

            I remain Your obd't servant, J.A. MAGOON.

 

ON DIT.

            That having quieted the P.C. Advertiser on Patriarchal Kauai, we have engaged one of our six editors to take up the subject of socialism, so sneeringly alluded to in the Bulletin.

 

            That the sixty Chinese were paralyzed when they saw their countrymen in the tra@oa@ enjoying the privileges of riding alle @@me Nelican man@.

 

            That the planters will welcome any such breech of the law as will provide them with cheap Chinese peon labor.

 

            That fifteen hundred was to have exchanged pockets for the privilege of landing Chinese on Hawaii's shore, a sum in this hard times, if it is to be paid for at all for the privilege of staying here, should go to government officially not to officials.

 

MONOPOLIES.

            6.         We shall @ our efforts to @ laws by which all favoritism in the government and all monopolies, trusts and @vileges to special claims shall be rendered impossible, by full, definite and mandatory statutes.

 

PROTECTION TO HOME INDUSTRIES

            7.         We are in favor of encouraging all home agriculture and industries, and @ our native products, like rice, coffee, wool, tobacco, etc. should be protected and fostered by proper tariff regulation; and also it must be the duty of the Government, in its contracts and other operations, to give preference to national products over imported ones.

 

LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT

            8.         We desire a more liberal policy towards the different Islands of the Kingdom, outside of Oahu; they should receive a fairer proportion of the public moneys for the development of their resources and the satisfaction of  their wants.  In fact, the principle of local Self-government should be extended, whereby giving localities may choose the most important of their local executive officers, and levy taxes for the purpose local improvements of a public nature.

 

PUBLIC SERVANTS.

            9.         Better laws should regulate the Civil Service.  The principle of the election of officers of the government by the people should be established, and no man should be allowed to hold more than one office of profit, whilst salaries should be adequate compensation for the services rendered.  All excessive salaries should be reduced and all @ine @ of superfluous offices abolished.

 

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 will advocate laws to prevent all further importation 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, in the interest of the better protection of the poor, ask for more liberal exemption of their property from forced sale on execution, and from seizure in bankruptcy proceeding.

 

SMALL FARMING AND HOMESTEADS.

            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 should be 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 especially 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 citizens free of taxes for a limited period.

            It should be the further aim of government to, at once, @ @ 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 RIGHT.

            11.       We hold that upright and honest manhood, and not the possession of wealth, arbitrarily fixed, should @ the right to vote for nobles as well as representatives, and no more power should be accorded to the ballot of the rich men than to the ballot of the poor man.  The dis@tuation 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 @ which blemish our laws with respect of the right to vote for nobles, thereby restoring to the native Hawaiians privilege which pertain to 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 outer Islands:  school, railroads and harbors and wharves, public lights and also a thorough system of reservoirs and water-works, not only for Honolulu, but through-out the other Islands.