The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1858-04-08
Correspondence Pacific Commercial Advertised


the oft-defeated attempt to license the retail Of intoxi-
eating drinks in Lahaina. It becomes the friends Of
temperance to be wide awake, and see that correct
ideas on this important question be diffused. I beg
a place in your columns. in the hope Of arousing at
tention to the subject, and perhaps placing some new
information upon it before many minds now laboring
under wrong impressions.
It seems to Ge that q serious practical error has
hitherto been committed by some. in their way Of
opposing this pernicious measure. Instead Of care
fully exposing the plausible Ellacies industriously
used to prove that the proposed measure was calcula-
ted to lessen rather than increase drunkenness here,
they have rested their cause too exclusively upon the
abstract moral principle that 1t is wrong for the gor-
ernment to license the practice Of any ~iniquity.
Now there can be no higher or stronger reason than
this, when it is apprehended by a sound and right
loving mind in all its force, both on the side Of the
greatness Of the crime against society which is de-
nounced. and on that of the duty Of government re-
garding it. But, however we may regret it, a large
class Of minds are so constituted that it is not q suf-
fciently practical reason to carry the day against the
plausible arguments by which it is shewn that licens-
ing will diminish intemperance.
The plea urged runs like this. You have a very
bad state of affairs in Lahaina under The present
system. You pretend to prohibit the sale of liquor,
yet drunkenness abounds, and a vast amount Of vile
stuff is sold furtively. The only way to remedy the
evil, is to license one or more retail houses which
shall do an open and respectable business. The in-
terest Of those who have paid for a monopoly, will
secure their activity etfectually to suppress all the
illegal traffic. That traffic with all its evils will
thus naturally come to an end; the business be con-
Quoted in an orderly manner; drunkenness be dimin-
ished, and government derive a profitable re senue.''
q
soning employed.
Nov, sir, 1 do not hesitate to pronounce this in
genious scheme for reforming our evils to be ONE
the most visionary and futile speculations that was
ever believed in by an honest man or invented by a
knavish one. You might just az well undertake to
extinguish 6 circle of small fires by igniting a huge
pile in the midst to draw away all their oxygen from
them by its more determined combustion. The liquor
business is like burning houses. 1t grows by -
diffusion. Intemperance is a raging fame. WHICH
fastens on human appetites. The more centers there
are where this combustion can be promoted, the bet
ter each ones business prospers. 1t does not oppose,
but helps the business of the larger liquor bar, to
have a number of smaller ones scattered through the
town to be its satellites. and keep infamed the deadly
appetite, on which its traffic thrives. Is not this the
actual working of the system, and the reason why
licensed retailers in Honolulu open unlicensed bars in
other parts of the town? Only keep the fame burn
ing as widely as possible, they reason, and the fuel
will be in demand.
And as it is an error to suppose that it is for the
interest of the licensed retailers to suppress the illegal
sale, so it is a still greater error to sur pose that it is
in their pocer to do so. 1 will not here dwell on the
~absurdity of attributing to them a cap y to sup
press that which an efficient police cannot suppress;
to cause laws to be executed. which the whole force
of the government cannot execute. [ will simply
call attention to the fact. that they are not in a posi-
ton to be active, that they dare not attempt to do it.
They do not dare, because the very moment, they
should commence operations against the outsiders,
the latter would turn upon them with fatal force, on
account of their own frequent violations of the law
against Simplifying liquor to natives. This has been
the working of the thing in Honolulu, as is we'll
known.
LET us alone, and we will let you alone, > say the
licensed sellers to the unlicensed. "W pay a thou
sand dollars for full swing, and have it. You pay
nothing in that way, but live in insecurity and fear,
and are often fined. We have our moneys worth;
we are satisfied without troubling you. Go ahead
and sell as much as the police will let you. 1t all
helps u.s."
If the police are not efficient in their duty, make
them so. Don't hire Satan, and give him 4 monopoly
10 eXpel DeeiZeDuD. lou VIII only DtCOuic u paftucE
in Satan's business, and will find the other dark per-
sonage as prosperous and as ugly as ever.
I trust that those friends of temperance who have
been indulging in the hope of efficient aid from any
such potent auxiliaries, will give the subject a closer
examination, when they will assuredly discern the
difference between solid ground and smoke.
Bus let us see the faIlacy of another point in the
argument. Suppose that it should really come to
1o,a ..,t a,a,v ;lIor,l h,r obo,,ld bo o1rroI ord tbo
sale should be confined to one or two licensed places,
is ii to be concluded that the consumption of spirits
will thereby be Unfinished? Who cannot see that
one place of UNRESTRICTED traffic can do more business
than twenty which are obliged to sell with secrecy
and caution One pipe of clear smooth bore will
deliver more water than twenty muddy bitches
INSTRUCTED by weeds. Plant a SNOWY bar in q con-
spicuous place, with free sale, and crowds of sea- &n
streaming in and out, and an amount of business will
be done, that will make the temperance folks open
their eyes and wonder what has happened.
Some people who have no otk1 idea of Lahaina
than as a shabby little place where ships touch q
few hours for vegetables on their way to Honolulu,
are amazed to learn that two or three thousand GAL
Ions of liquors are sold here annually, and think any
change rnIst be for the better. But give us an open
bar here, and We will show you powers of imbibing
that will put Honolulu to the blush. If the present
consumption is not doubled and trebled then there
are no dry threats on this beach.
Those who suppose the present law does not greatly
restrict intemperance are much mistaken. Those
who sell liquor dc SO at great risk, and frequently
encounter heavy penalties. Last fall, the authorities
we've unusually active in f~erreting out the infractions
of the law, and secured some dozen or more convic-
tions during the season. Some of the Oldest and
worst offenders were broken up entirely. Thelappy
effect is seen this spring. in the fact that With a
larger feet than last year, there has been q marked
of drunkenness, and fewer places where
Intoxicating drinks can be procured than in many
years. There is progress. Let us have a
really sealous and willing enforcement even Of the
present weak and insufficient law. and we shall see
the evil traffic drying up more and more. There is
only one decisive hinderancs to its extraction, the
Of two licensed xholesale eztahI;shman4.