Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 424, 4 April 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.

 

MONDAY, APRIL, 4, 1892.

 

Financial Stringency.

 

            There is a severe stringency in the money market.  and loads and discounts are impossible even upon the most approved paper.  If this continues it will result in commercial and financial disaster.  It is believed that there is abundant capital in the city, but it is greedily hoarded by its timid owners.  Practical men severely condemn the action of Bishop & Co’s Bank in hoarding money, refusing loans and discounts, and closely call in all that is due them.  This conduct is decidedly not worth of the title of financiering or banking, but it just about what an ordinary broker or money lender would do.

            In times like the present it is the duty of bankers and capitalists to ease the money market rather than to tighten it by refusing all assistance to legitimate commercial or agricultural enterprises.  The present crisis has demonstrated the necessity of a public bank than can be conducted by some one of the known methods of financiering.

            As we pointed out in our recent article “Financial” it is dangerous and impolitic to have government or business men subject to the mercy or caprice of a private money broker.  The most important need of the hour is a public national bank for business men and agriculturists, and a large government loan for facilitating the settlement of homestead, the encouragement and assistance of minor industries, and the building of roads and railroads to facilitate the movement of produce to market.  The prosperity of the country did not die with the discomfiture of the sugar barons.  In our fertile resources there lies in embryo a magnificent and prosperous future.  It requires but the right stamp of men at the head of affairs, and a little degree of energy and statesmanship to recover all that has been lost and a thousand fold more.  We wish every success to Dillingham, Thurston and Atherton, and wish we had more bankers and merchants of their enterprise and energy.  hard times would be a thing of the past.

 

A “COVERED” MEETING

 

            The Bulletin feels it to be its duty to throw itself into the breach in order to divert attention from the real points at issue touching the “covered” meeting.  The facts are briefly, as gleaned from several members of that “Labor Union.”  That on Wednesday evening at about 9:30 the business of the lodge was through and the retiring members were “covered” by some six or more spies.  So far we not have anything to find fault with.  It is not pleasant to honest working men so “spotted” to have the facts published next day in the official organ of the police department and the exigencies of the times—when the air is full of republicanism and annexation-is surely sufficient excuse, and the Marshals forethought in “covering” that meeting will be as the Balm of Gilead to every Royalist member of Labor Union No 1 in assuring him that the divinity that doth hedge a King is on tap at the station house.

            Moreover, the fact that Wilcox was reported to have been present when he was not, may prove that Robert the Terrible is playing a new edition of the Corsican Brothers, or Box and Cox in having a double of some kind humbugging the Marshal.  We are reluctant to accuse spot six or seven “spotters” of putting up a job on the Marshal by saying they saw Wilcox, because they might lose their job, which just now is their only hope of head and terbaccer, and besides it is pretty well known that all the respectable men in town is on the Station House spotted list and the only parties not suspected are the forty seedy looking “specials” who sleep in their pants all night in the police court room and a few hangers on who are well paid, and the editor of the Police Gazette, and the said editor feels much like an unlaundried shirt over the fact that he go badly snagged on his “official” news, and his rage and strong adjectives shows how an official editor can feel when he brings the laugh on himself and leaves his retreat un-covered.

 

GOVERNMENT BY CHAOS.

 

            The latest expression of the conviction that Party Government is a failure comes from New South Wales.  An obscure member of the Sydney Legislature named Clark drafted the following resolution, which was no doubt relegated to an obscure corner of the notice-paper and looked upon by the old members of the Assembly as an unimportant fad, which lay beyond the domain of “practical politics.”

1.        That the existing system of Party Government while enormously expensive to the country, manifestly fails to @ the best possible results in the @ required progressive @

2.       That @ would facilitate the passing @ of democratic measures @ Committee @

3.       @ questions of great @ of @ should before those that @be submitted to a vote of the @ population of the country.

We establish the following from the best written and most popular@ in the Southern

Hemisphere the S@ Bulletin .

Regarded as the first legislative sign of the beginning of a new era in the art of

government this notion is a matter of some importance.  Apart from that, however, it has no importance worth mentioning.  Mr. G.D. Clark will probably be dead or will have vanished out of politics before the reterm is fairly beg@ and the same old notion will @ upon for discussion 20, or perhaps 50, times or @ any results.  If Mr. Clark succeeds in r@ing his pre@ions @ for 15 or 20 years, and abandoning cold @ hysterias devotes himself solely @ one subject – if @ been @ one @ times of the @ and @his topic @and is @every time he raises @ - @ other members fly from him in the refreshment-room, and dodge him in the lobby, lest he should buttonhole them on the dreary question of constitutional reform – an if he still sticks to it till he becomes a veteran crank and an object of derision to the daily press – then he may at last, in the course of years, see it arrive within the domain of “practical politics.”  and have the pleasure of knowing that it has advanced a stage on the road to success.  After that some more prominent politician will steal the idea and shunt Mr. G.D. Clark, and refuse to recognise him when they meet.  The new politician will stump the country on it, and will form a party, on the strength of it in the House, and the daily press will gravely speculate as to whether “the time is yet ripe” for such a change, and then at last a Bill embodying Mr. Clark’s idea will be passed, and the Upper House – if there is one in these days – will carefully throw it out.  Thereupon there will be several more “electoral campaigns” will the Upper House is coerced into passing the measure, after which the Governor – will probably “withhold his consent.”  And, last of all, the reform will get through in triumph, and if Mr. Clark tries to assert in that far-distant future that he is the father – in a Parliamentary sense – of the great measure, he will be thrown out as a base imposter, while the country raises a monument to the man who borrowed the idea just when it promised to become successful.  We mention these things merely to encourage Mr. G.D. Cloak in his new path as a constitutional reformer.  The country is growing tired of Party Government.  but e4ven when the nation is absolutely howling for a great reform, its progress is very slow:  when the nation is not howling it, its progress is still slower.

            “The system of Party Government has no single advantage to counter balance all these disabilities.  The governing force of the country, under the present policy, is solely and entirely the dominant faction in the Legislative Assembly.  The country hires this faction to do the work of Legislation and hires the other faction to prevent it doing it.  It also hires the Legislative Coun@ prevent it doing it, and it @ government for the same @the only active exertion which is permitted him is that of occasionally withholding his assent to Acts of Parliament. and all his other functions could be performed equally well by a stuffed monkey.  And, it addition to all these it keep the Queen in the @ another agency to prevent @ it for that gracious potentate’s authority over Australia also consists solely in withholding her assent; and amid all these obstacles there is much heavy toil @ and mystery of legislation and that national SISYPHUS spends most its time in rolling pen@ uphill, and seeing them @ again every time they approach the summit.

 

            This item advanced years ago by @ BULLETIN, and now submitted to the New South Wales Parliament by Mr. Clark.  offers a remedy for at least a great part of these numerous anomalies.  It provides that all Ministers shall be elected directly by a vote of the Assembly, so that it will be practicable to collect all the ab@ representatives and combine them in one Cabinet, quite irrespective of their political opinions.  Each man will administer his department, will draft what Bills he thinks fit, and introduce them on his own responsibility, and will be at liberty to criticise his colleagues or anybody else with absolute freedom.  The House will be at liberty to reject or amend any or every proposition brought forward by a Minister without thereby expressing a “want of confidence” in him; it merely appoints him for a certain period to do certain administrative work at a fixed salary, but it does not pledge itself by any means to endorse all his actions and those of his colleagues under a penalty of losing his services.

 

ON DIT.

 

            That the effects of the late revolution is still apparent with the Government:  the Police is quite vigilant and the military on the quivive, sleeping on their guns.

 

            That the troops have been increased.  Each regiment now has its full complement of men.  That the guard on duty have to hivonae armed @.

 

            That the Palace Party is making overtures to the weak ones among the Liberals one of whom was invited to a little private confab.  We are not sure that Vulean was present, but we feel sure that his best half was.

 

            That Charles Burnit, told us by an old Kahuna, is C.B.W. and that his amaauensisis and old resident of the Cities of the Plains, who escaped when they were destroyed and who has been reserved for the last days to be Burnt in the lake of liquid brimstone.

 

            That a restoration of the old Constitution, with all its royal @ is promised the poor Hawaiian it he will only have patience until after the session of the Legislature – if the deluge does not intervene.

 

            That the next royal poetical production will be “Nuinui pilikia with me now, or Beitshaxar’s Vision!” Music by the Royal Paganini.

 

            That KA LEO has April fooled some one from receiving an open appointment, and the giver from employing an old pal whom the Bulletin defended a little while before June 30, 1887.

 

            That the reason old Exchequer keeps his “feet up” on his table is to prevent a rush of blood to the seat of his undertandings; that the law-officer has to “lay down.” bung up to keep from overflowing; while young Beaconsfield has to ride a train to keep his hand in as a @ while our interior is waiting for the swell at the bar to try the “dredger” mahope.

           

            That a Fishing for men for war recruits has been the employment of a bank clerk, to guard the bank in case of war

 

            That dynamite explosives are said to the superior to sand bag barriers, and there are people in town who have @ and @ and @ them.

 

            That the Governor elects that the sand bag presentive @ quite according to order and in anticipation of a revolution.  This old Scotch Thistle is only looking after his bairn’s inheritance.

 

            That Boss Bowler has received Arnold’s deserts.

 

            That the “Dredger” is a blasted failure, except to the contractors.

 

            That Prince Charles has a private entrance from Palace Walk to the Bungalow, and out to the Hotel to watch the trend of public sentiment. 

 

Platform of Principle

OF THE

HAWAIIAN NATIONAL LIBERAL PARTY.

SMALL FARMING AND HOME STEADS.

 

10.  The wealthy fraction of our population have hitherto prevented the development of an independent clan of @ness; the public lands have been acquired and have been tied up in a few hands or parcelled to suite 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 the new and more liberal Homestead not, 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 settlers free of taxes for a limited period.

            It should be the further aim of government to, at once, so far improve the means of transportation, - local, national and international, - as to provide, in all districts, cheap means of conveying the product of the soil to market.

ELECTORIAL 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 awarded 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 leveling of the present distribution of wealth and classes which blemish our laws with respect to the right to vote for nobles, thereby restoring to the native Hawaiians privileges 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 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.

PUBLIC SERVANTS

6.  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 @ or superfluous offices abolished.

PROTECTION TO THE LABOURISM 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 @ and degrading competition with true Hawaiian or white labor.  We shall also in the interest of the better protection of the peer, ask for more liberal exemption of their property from forced sale on or eviction and from @ bankruptcy proceeding.