The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-10-15

In case of a sale of this property instead OF
lease, the six lower lots would doubtless realize an.
aggregate Of $4,000, and the nine upper lots
$50, 000-suficient to pay off the Indebtedness OF
the government and leave a surplus to carry on
the work Of filling in the adjoining land. Ii
government could procure loans at low rates Tor
its improvement, it might be good policy to rent
this property and borrow money but such is
not the case. 1t is borrowing money at II to Is
per cent. per annum, and cannot afford to receive
sgr it dirEfff hanefsr op aSS siaa ts sa TEN 5 esH siinfflh the t dEsbt,
unless the interest you receive is greater than
that which you pay.
We know of no obstacle standing in the way
of a sale of the allodial title of the wharf lots at
any time that they may be ready for Disposal
The second section of the +. act to amend an act
relating to the water lots, called Waikahalulu,"
passed in 1855, fully empowers the Minister OF
the Interior to sell this land. 1t is as follows
"sEc. 1.-The Minister of the Interior is hereby authorized to
sell one or more of the lots Of Waikahafulu in like manner with
all other real estate belonging to the government, after giving the
notice required in Section 4 Of the said Act"
The next proposition in this water lot scheme
will strike every reader as perfectly absurd and
betraying a great want of ordinary business tact
if not of open duplicity. Here is a proposition to
sell a lease for 100 years, and at the end of each
25 years the lessee is to submit to have his estate
appraised over, and if he is found paying too lit
tie rent, to have the rate increased. We know
that the rule is intended to work both ways, but
we know also that politicians are sometimes ut
terly unprincipled, and such, a liberty given to
the Minister of the Interior, or any other officer
of the government, twenty-five or fifty years
hence, would cause no little anxiety to the holder
of the lease. Every man of common sense knows
that Improved real estate, in ninety-nine cases out
of a hundred, increases in value from year to year
according to the improvements made on it and
that such will undoubtedly be the case with this
wharf property. This proposition, it will be no.
ticed at once, is not intended for the benefit o
the lessee but for that of the government, and in
the hands of an inscriptions ministry, might
easily be made the lever to GUST the possessor from
his estate.
For instance, a merchant and capitalist from
San Francisco purchases the lease of lot No. l
for $3.50 per annum, and erects thereon a fine
block of ~fre-proof stores, which, from the man
ner the property has been improved by him, pro-
duces at the end of twenty-five years thrice the
income of the adjoining lot No. 2, which pays a
rental of 500 to the government. Now, if the
same honest officers presided over the government
twenty-five years hence that now do, the matter
might be equitably settled. But it is very easy
to see that No. l could be compelled to double
the rental that he pays to government for the
next seyenty-fve years, in order to be considered
more equal to No. 2. To reduce the rate paid
by the latter would not be thought of, the object
being revenue. Here would be room for most
fragrant injustice, to which no lessee who has his
eyes open can ever assent.
This plan of sltering the rate Orient is 50 per-
fectly absurd, that it is a wonder how Il minister
could ever have consented to see it placed over his
name in the columns of a newspaper.
With the third and last feature of this newly
ledged ministerial bantling, we have but little to
say. If a purchaser buys the lease or title of a
GROUND, binding himself to build on it such a
structure as the lessor or former owner may die
tate, he should know the terms of his purchase.
That these lots should be covered with f~ire-proof
buildings, if any, is all very proper. but to COM
pei a person 20 erect a building, and that build
ing !. to conform to the general plan laid down
by the government, , without any reference to the
ability of the lessee, his taste or the business he
may have in view, looks a little like retrograding
into the practice of the middle ages. 1t is very
we'll to have a plan drawn up, but to compel each
buyer to follow it in preference to his own wishes
and interests for the sake of looks isnot quite the
thing. A sugar refinery or a mill could hardly
be made to conform to the plan laid out of two
story buildings, but would requirea three or four
story structure.