The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1858-05-06
Correspondence of the Commercial Advertiser,

LAHAINA, April 20. 1858.
Mr.. EDITOR In the issue of the Advertiser Of
the 9Th inst, we read with no little interest the com.
munication over the signature of :" Delaran - We
cay ~ niue interest, because we were In hopes some
body had taken up this perplexing topic who would
discuss it impartially, and adduce cogent reasons why
retail liquor licenses should not be granted for La
haina by the Legislature about to be convened.
But it is needless to say that we were sorely disap-
pointed. Instead of giving us views upon the subject
matter of his correspondence, characterised by sense,
lucidity and candor, he has pursued the old beaten
track of narrow-mindedness and illiberality-repeat-
ed the old, and in this case utterly untenable, argu-
ments that we have heard here time and time again
from the lips of those in favor of a Maine liquor law.
The inability of d., however, to convince us of the
wisdom and sound policy of refusing retail liquor
licenses for this place is by no means the only fault
with him.. He has, iii our opinion, wandered widely
from the truth I'VE will not say knowingly in some
of his statements he says that the consumers of
alcoholic liquors can, or do, obtain them in guam
titles less than the original package from the licensed
wholesale dealers in Lahaina ; in other words, that
they can buy of them by the bottle or the glass.
With all due Difference to d., this is far from the
truth we have been acquainted with the two gen.
tlemen who hold the only two wholesale licenses in
this place for some time-have been in and out of
their places of business almost daily for the past two
years. and have never seen or heard of any person or
persons purchasing quantities of them less than their
license authorizes them to sell ; bit we have known
them frequently to refuse selling small quantities,
alleging as a reason, that by SO doing, they would
violate the conditions of their license.
Now. if d. is the individual we suspect him to be,
he has committed an offence very u~Dbecoming his
grave calling, and one that cannot be too severely
reprobated in giving publicity to a statement calculat-
ed to infict pain and injury on third parties, without
being first thoroughly satisfied of its truth.
Dsiaran says that q large portion of the respecta-
BILE residents of Lahaina are opposed to retail licenses.
We are at a loss to know what portion of our small
community d.. regards as respectable if he means
the missionary "coterie,'' " large of heart and
BRAIN we will not dispute him but outside of this
Evangelical clique (of which, we have no doubt. d.
is a burning and shining light) we defy him to pro-
duce six foreign residents of the Island of Maui,
respectable or not respectable, if he will, opposed to
the granting of retail liquor licenses for Lahaina On
the contrary, we know from an interchange of opin-
ions upon the subject with the temperate, practical,
hard working foreigners of the island, who are labor
ing to develop its resources, that they are in favor of
granting licenses for Luhaina, and are at q loss to
perceive the wisdom of Withholding them, unless it is
upon lhe pohcy that the Exchequer Of the country is
more copiously replenished from fines arising from
traffic in liquor than it would be from the sale
of licenses. d. is in favor of having things remain
as they are, in Lahaina-that is, he is DESTROYS that
liquor should be s~tealthily sold here as it is at present,
and thereby have men daily violating the law. This
is the position which d. takes ; and it is just such a
position as we should expect a man to take who
never yet put his pen to paper without exposing the
i~nsipidity of his character. He gives us a
short summary of the arguments employed by those
in favor of the granting of licenses, and in his next
period pronounces them to be the most visionary and
futile speculations ever believed in by an honest man
Or invented by a knavish one. Now we should like to
know by what process of reasoning d. has arrived ut
this conclusion! Certainly not from experience, for
the experiment has never been tried in this town
md the argument which he has attempted to establish
rom analogy is not sustained and in this connec-
ion we would enquire of d. how he became possessed
the fact that licensed retailers in Honolulu open
bars in other parts of tine town. We
bought that we were we'll acquainted with most Of
he retail licensed spirit dealers in Honolulu, and
lever for a moment thought or suspected them Of
'pening unlicensed bars for the purpose of increasing
he custom of their licensed ones but d., We see, il