The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1856-11-13
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.


Government-the oracle and exponent of ministerial
views and measures. Owned as it is by the Govern
ment, and its officers paid by it, it is but proper t.
conclude that the opinions and views expressed by
it, coincide at least with those of ministers and the
opinion is held both at home and abroad, that such
are the views of this government. Whatever may
appear in it's columns, rejecting on individuals
corporate bodies, or nations, whether true or false.
the government, as the sole proprietor of the estab-
lishment. is fully responsible for. 1t is no p~alliation
to plead that it does not pretend absolutely to control
the acts of those employed by it for so long as an
agent is employed, his principal is responsible for
every official act of his.
The leading article in the last Pelynesian is of such
a nature as to demand notice from us as public jour
nalists. The article brings up again. the Home affair,
q. it is called, and the conduct of the Government in
relation to their promises to the Sailors Home SOci-
ETY., but like the prescriptions of q quack physician
instead of healing, it only opens fresh the closing
wound. We should have permitted the subject to lie
quietly at rest with the bare publication of the memo
rial of the trustees and the very honorable final action
of the Privy Council thereon, had the Government
chosen to let the matter drop there. But it has not.
While seeking to show that its own error is at most
a venial one, it labors hard to make out a case against
the trustees, and then, without adducing a proof,
charges them with being at error in the matter.
While it p%roffers the calumet of peace, it stoops down
to uncover the buried tomahawk, and in so STOPPING.
reveals the g~littering blade of a scalping knife hidden
in its bosom. We say 1T, for how can it be regarded
other than the act of the government, which, while it
owns its error, seeks to throw blame on others !? Had
the leader alluded to appeared only as a communica-
ton, and as the opinion of a private individual, it
would have passed for what it was worth. But it
does not. The article in question was penned by q
member of the Privy Council, fresh from the discus
sion of the subject in the Council Chamber, and can
only be regarded as official. IF it be so, then we say
that the government is only adding insult to injury.
1t acknowledges in the resolution of the Privy Council
that an error was committed by it in the matter. and
then in the editorial leader of its official organ. seeks
to throw the weight of the error on the trustees. 1t
profters the pipe of peace, but takes care to accom-
pany the profer with an insult, in order 's to afford
new proof that the King has about him advisers. who
are no respecters of persons, using the phrase in its
sense.''
"The Trustees were also wrong So saws the
oracle. Gas fifteen minutes are to fifteen months, so
is the hasty action of the one to the attenuated error
the other" The 0ttenuated error Of the Trustees
And IN what consists their error? Perhaps in boldly
the government that truth, uprightness
md honesty are the tower of its strength. Perhaps
It was because the Board dared to remind it that a
of its promise and of the guaranteed rights
ot d seconi party, are not so trivial an affair as it
may be regarded in the Interior Office and other de-
partments of the Government. Well, be it so. They
have the satisfaction of knowing that they
contending for right and justice.
But the PoIynesian would seek to create the belief
it was SO gifted as to have remembered. as
ong ago as Aug. 30, the existence of the law of 1854.
regulating the boundaries for granting licenses, and
that the leader in the paper of that date was intended
20 illustrate it. There is no more allusion in the
Potyncsian of Aug. 80 to the above law of 1854. or
to any thing connected with this controversy. than
here Is to the color of the man in the moon, unless
perhaps the article is read backwards, commcncinr
1t the end. Had the existence of that law been re-
nembered ut the time the above article was penned.
t would have been proclaimed louder than the cock
crowed for ST. Peters benefit.
The truth of the whole matter is this the govern
nent in 1855 promised to the trustees of the S. III.
society, that no licenses should hereafter be granted
On that block. Such promise was undoubtly wrong,
IND should never have been given, since the Privy
Council had not the power but it was made and yio-
lated IN the belief that it had such power, and with
put a recollection on its part or that of any body else,
II AVA Ie power SO 10 Go. In July, 1856.
without consulting that body, they openly violated
their promise given before to the trustees, in order
rs we are officially informed, "to afford new proof
that the king has about him advisers who are no
of persons, and it might have been added.
no r%especters of truth. Against this course the trus-
ICES protested as being arbitrary and a violation of
lights proffered to them. So the matter rested till
about the beginning of the present month, when the
return allowed further action. In the mean
lime, or during October. a legal loophole is fortu-
1ately discovered, through which the PriYy Council
IAN honorably mend " an innocent little slip.'' which
night otherwise have been a more difficult task
LAST week an informal memorial was presented to
lis Majesty, on behalf Of the trustees, who was pleas
ed graelously to accept it, and order that O. resolution
'e passed and published, expressive of regret at the
action of the government in the matter. This honor
'ble course, satisfactory we suppose to all parties,
would have ended the strife, had not the government
9ress, through one of the members of the Privy Coun-
famed the dying embers by abusing the trustees
II the 5 Ill. Society. and charging them with blind
ness fer not being able to see through a gravestone
IND with fifteen months of attenuated error'' in
discovering what the (" law members'' of the Pri-
w Council appear not to have been able to discover
lur1ng the same period.
But as for " the motives of the government IN
violating their promise being " unimpeaoi,ab2e. " Che
aSC fboK Ill