Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 257, 12 August 1891 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

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

 

KA LEO.

John E. Bush.

Luna Hooponopono a me puuka.

 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1891.

MARK THE GALLED JADE WINCE.

It was only on Monday last that we resumed the poblication of our English page, wherein we told some wholesome fruths, ( however, unpalatable to the ungodly guild), and lo, - bright and early on Tuesday morning, the sleepy and semidefunct old Advertiser was seized with a spasm of wakefulness; in the course whereof it indulged in such ravings against our use of truth as only the truly good people of the missionary fold can indulge in.  If there be one thing which that guild, more than all other things, dread and protest against, it is the TRUTH, when told concerning themselves.  All the old ideas and proverbs as to the beauty and sacredness of the truth, have been turned topsy-turvy in the lives, dealings, and writings of the holy fraternity here referred to.  With as cool effrontery as that of Machiaveli in protesting his truthful disposition, these lambs of the Puritan foid hold themselves up to admiration and their critics to contempt and opprobrium.  We have heard it said of individual liars, that they had told certain lies so often that they had at last convinced themselves of the truth of what they at first invented.  If the missionaries and this city hace not experienced similar condition, we can vouch for it, only the latter of them is lacking.  For if the reiteration of untruths could carry conviction to those who utter them, the clique and mouthpiece here alluded to have had ample reasons for being convinced.

 

It is simply dishonest in the Advertiser to pretend that it “takes the liberty of wholly disbeliving” what we said about the pretest against existing conditions by the Hawaiian orator on Kauai.  The facts were published at the time in this paper, and afterward reiterated by the gentleman’s own statement in KA LEO, and also in the Advertiser Company’s own Hawaiian daily and commented upon as truth; these facts are readily accessible to all in search of truth.  But as above intimated, truth is the just things the Advertiser, or its pious patrons, wish to find.  The bare idea of that organ in search of truth is too funny.  In such a search, that dishonest old entity would be sure to go blind folded and in the dark, for fear of marking discoveries.  We have heard of a @amp looking for work, and praying he might no find it.  When the Advertisesr begins its search for truth, it will be with the same prayer on its lips.

 

ROMANCE.

As a sample of journalistic mendacity commend us to the statement in the Advertiser, that the appointment of Mr. Smith (Romanesque Mott-Smith) as Minister of Finance “has given general satisfation.”  If this statement is to be at all credited, it must be confined, in its application, to the little clique of Queen and Merchant Streets, who represent the “sack,” in this “sack” cursed country.  To say that Mr. Mott-Smith’s (with a hypen, please, of late) appointment is satisfactory to any except those who are opprobriously known as the missionary faction, is to say what is wholly untrue.

In fact, the natives, and all the elements of the body politic cutside the gilded circle of the missionary camp, feel not only disgusted, but insulted, at the importation of a hyphen-ated Yankee to fill a vacancy for which there were and are scores of eligible men, both native and foreign, whose domicile and interests are wholly Hawaiian. If the Queen were advised to make such appointment, her advisers deserve politieal damnation, prompt and certain.  If the Queen made such appointment of her own personal choice, it is an eloquent commentary upon the change wrought by missionary luaus in her lately pretested, consuming aloha for the welfare of her own race, and determination to second their just aspirations to fair share in the government of their native land.

If a foreigner were needed, in God’s name, was it necessary to go to the Back Bay District of holy Boston for a candidate?  Have we no residents of foreign b@rth or parentage who are competent to hold, or deserving of that office.  If not, let the Queen, or her advisers, whichever and whoever is or are responsible for the appointment here complained of, publish the assertion of such unfitness and undesert.  If there are island residents, eligible to such appointments, what excuse shall the appointing power render for ignoring them in favoring this non-resident Yankee, whose olny interest in this Kingdom, for years past, has consisted in drawing an income from the fruits of our delectable peon labor system?

Viewed in any light, the appointment of the gentlemen, who parts his name in the middle, and hyphen ates the same, is an unpardonable affront to the electors and tax-payers of Hawaii, of whatever race or color.

IS IT POSSIBLE?  We learn from the Advetiser, that our esteemed enemy.  Mr. Thurston, had gone to the Coast, to boom the Volcano House enterprise, and generally to ind@ce travel to his hash-house on the mountain.  But the Tiser rather contradicts the foregoing promise of benefit to the hash-house, wherein it states that “Mr. Thurston is showing in connection with this volocano work, the executive ability which was displayed by him during his tenure of office.”

Oh! Lord, save the unhappy stockholders from a “display” of that particular brand of “executive ability.”

 

 

Our Bice.

The agitation which the sugar planters and their friends have raised to attempt to secure an abolition of the duties on imported rice is only another instance of the selfish greed of our monied oligarchy of suger planters.  To partially overcome the disabilities which they suffer under the McKinley Tariff, they would sacrifice and paralyze every other industry we posses.  Every other branch of agriculture and every small farmer must stand subservient to king sugar.

Bolde, even in their demands than were the robber barons of old, they now attack our second chief industry, viz., rice, but it is time to call a halt and examine the question.  A handful of wealthy sugar autocrats find themselves forced to economise by a decline in the value of their product.  Rice being the principal food of their laborers, they propose to rob a sister industry of its profits by botaining cheap and free rice from China and Japan.  They pay for Hawaiian rice about 5c.; free rice from the orient would cost about 3c, thus effecting a saving of 2c, and as each laborer consumes on the average about 5 sacks of 100 lb. each, annually, the economy would amount to about $10 per head yearly:  Say a plantation having 250 hands would save about $2,500, annually.  What a paltry sum this is compared to other items of expense on a sugar plantation and what widespread injustice will be done to effect this saving.

Our annual production of rice is about 30,000,000 lbs., or say 300,000 sacks.  Two thirds of this is consumed here and the profits retained in the country.  One third only being shipped to California.  Let the oriental rice in free and every pound of Hawaiian rice would have to be shipped to California.  The Hawaiian rice planter would be robbed of his local profits for the benefit of the sugar planter and Asiatic commerce.  And what would be the result in California.

Hawaiian rice duty free comes now into close competion with American rice, the price being regulated in the East rather than in California.  To have the bulk of the Hawaiian rice product suddenly launched on the California market would break the price down to freezing point, and the Hawaiian rice interests would be worse paralized than sugar is now; in fact all but ruined

Now; why should our rice interests be sacrificed to the greed of the sugar baron?  And what are our rice interests?  The planter says it would effect only the Chinese.  But stop and consider!  Almost every acre of land under rice culture is under lease to Chinese who pay high rentals.  Hundreds of natives live upon the rentals received from kuleanas leased to Chinese rice planters; and many white people derive handsome revenues from tracts of land also so leased.  It is known that the Chinese rice grower receives from his paddy but little more than he would get if working for wages on a sugar plantation.  The chief profit is made after the paddy is hulled, and the bulk of the crop is handled by American merchants in Honolulu.  Are not then these Hawaiian and American lessors and merchants, who are a numerous constituency, entitled to equal consideration with the handful of sugar nabobs.  Though the rice industry is small compared with sugar, its profits are more widely distributed, and it is an industry worthy of production and encouragement.  Let the sugar planter study the labor question; in that, lies the solution of their difficulties.  If they need cheaper rice badly, let them turn a portion of their sugar lands into rice-it would be feasible and profitable.  Their proposition to introduce oriental rice free of duty is unjust and unfair, and we doubt if the United States would regard such a manoeuvre with favor.

 

 

DEATH’S DOMAINS.

The Steamer Likelike was at anchor under the great cliff where the island of Molokai rises, three thousand feet straight out of the sea.  The morning sun illumined the rippling water and the great wall flecked with green.

Directly in front was a strip of low rolling land extending from the base of the cliff into the sea.  On this stretch of green meadow land we see a considerable village of white cottages scattered about many surrounded by small gardens.  There were no street, and no stores or business places; for this is Kalaupapa, the leper settlement, where the only business is death.  Still the scene from the steamer was fair enough to look upon.  Straining our eyes we could see forms gathering on the shore and running to and from, on foot and on horseback.

On board the steamer, a great mass of people were crowding the deck and jammed together about the gangway waiting for the first boat.  It was a very quiet and subdued assembly who said little, but looked curiously at the shore and with evident impatience to reach it.  When the first boat was ready it was hard to keep the crowd back and almost impossible to examine their passports.  The boat was soon full to overflowing and the interrupted stream had to wait for the next.

It took more than an hour to discharge the human freight.  When the greater part had been landed we entered a boat and were pulled slowly toward the land.  We watched intently the figures on the shore as we approached, like voyagers to the nether world might gaze across the black waters of the Styx and strive to make out the forms of the flitting shades on the border land of the infirnal regions.  As we approached the awful vision unfolded itself.  First it seemed as if some of the figures on horseback wore huge red masks, strange caricatures of the human face.  As we came near the landing the horrors of the sight multiplied.  Here stood objects that were images of all that is horrible and revolting, things that made the spectator draw back and shudder.  Truly, this is the realm of death and torment; those faces have been scorched, roasted by the fires of hell, and scratched, seamed, and distorted in hideous mockery by the red-hot fingers of demons.  Here are creatures all raw, bleeding, ulcerating, hanging in tags of flesh and masses of corruption; with eyes glazed and scalded, festering stubs of limbs, great grimming deaths heads, misshapen, inhuman, grisly.  Here are the rolling inhabitants of a dozen grave yards walking about with the flesh dropping from their bones.

As fast as the boats arrived the passengers landed and immediately fused with the crowd of lepers.  People found their children, parents, brothers or sisters among the lepers. It is impossible to imagine how they could recognize any resemblance to their friends among such a mass of monstrous deformity.  But these Hawaiian did; and embraced and kissed the livid putrescent flesh and clung to them and cried aloud.  Soon after they would go away with the lepers to their houses, perhaps to see some even worse cases which were unable to drag themselves out.

To be Continued.

 

 

ON DIT.

That the Bulietin Cannery since the Advertiser’s allusion to it, has gone into bankruptcy.

 

That a merchant on Merchantstreet, frankly acknowledged that he was not a rose tree, though he carried a rose; and modestly asserted that he felt more gloriously arrayed than either Charles or Claus with all their shekels.

 

That as an incident or sequel of of her, Majesty’s tour to Waimanalo last week, all handsand the cook, got glorious on that little leviathan which took the royal party over, and probably the same thing occurred as a final to that tableaux.

 

That the Ka Leo is receiving its usual compliments from both friend and opponent, and we hope that the compliment will be in substantial from.

 

That owing to the consideration of a new cabinet, the Premier, has been obliged to remain over, and forego, that much needed rest, which was the result of “exhausting effort required to prepare and orate his numerous speeches, “Poor Sam, we are afraid that the weighty affairs of state will make bim prematurely old.

 

That a new clerk has been appointed in the Foreign Affairs Department; he is a relative of Hon. W. H. Cornwell, one of the political opponents of the present Premier during the last Legislature.

 

That a gentleman in California says, that the tobacco franchise allowed by the Hawaiian Government, was offered to him by a young noble of the Legislature.

 

That the great book maker, who was booked to leave by the steamer Zelandia, did not leave to meet his family; the great necessity for staying appears to be the fear of being g@yed by the San Francisco papers, for the unappriciative and antagonistic attitnde of the populace at Sam’s poi and luau speeches while starring the group with Royalty.

 

That General Armstrong, left yesterday with his daughters, and will probably reach San Francisco, at the same time with our two last issues.  We hope the General will be able to peruse the Engkish page of Ka Leo of yesterday and the day before, as we feel sure he will be enabled to give a truthful account of how affaires are in Hawaii, at present, and the anti-missionary feeling the Hawaiians entertain after being made homeless and penniless through religious lessons as taught him by Boston theologians.

 

That the Advertiser is willing that His Ex. Samuel Parker, Minister of Foreign Affairs should go to San Francisco, “as Minister Parker has been on vacation tours for the past two or three months,” and that owing to “the past exhausting effort required to prepare and orate (sugar) his numerous sppches calls for a rest now.” and “probably” when the vacuum in his cranium is stufferd from some sugar magnate’s office in San Francisco, “he will be prepered to work out new problems of state “i.e., some way to boom the sugar estates and introduce a new scheme for bringing more Asiantics into the country and China rice duty free to help impoverish his own people