The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-11-10
rHn PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
~THURSDAY. O 10.


THURSDAY, NOV. 10.
In another column will be found a summary OF
the results of the property and tax assessment Tor
the current year. For the first time in its history
we have an estimate of the wealth of the king
dom, based on data which are at all reliable.
Individual guesses have heretofore been our esti-
mates. The total, little more than seven millions
falls probably below general expectation, even
after allowing for the under valuation which
commonly rules in assessments, something as the
registered tonnage of a ship is below her actual
carrying capacity. If we add the subjects OF
specific taxes which are separately enumerated,
averaging the thirty and a half thousand horses
and mules (Which we believe to be not more than
two-thirds the real number, for they are what the
native term for personal property expresses, rai-
,cai haua, floating, say fitting property, and easily
put out of assessors slightly at ten dollars a head,
the vehicles at one hundred dollars apiece, and
the dogs at nothing at all, the total OF taxable
property is brought up to 81 1854, sos. To this
is to be added to make the grand total, the estates
of Their Majesties, the property of the govern
ment, of schools, churches, and benevolent insti-
buttons, and a per centum of property overlooked
and moderated. We think a round ten millions
will embrace all, as the present value of property
in the kingdom.
From a glance at the assessors books, with
which we were courteously favored by gentlemen
in the office of the Department of Finance, we
Judge the basis of assessment has not been uni
form, ana almost necessarily in a first assessment
it could not be, for the scale was each assessors
judgment, guided by some very general principles,
to be applied also by his judgment. One assessor
sanguine in the capabilities of land to yield crops
which have never been grown, and in the promise
of trees which have not yet borne fruit, will APP
preciate its value by a certain tincture of the flu
ture, while a cooler mar will strictly ask what
has it already yielded, what has been its ordinary
and average return. From the appraisment of
some pieces of property with which we are per-
sonally acquainted In contiguous districts, we
think it has happened so, and the plan of send
ing assessors in pairs has not always corrected it.
In some, at least, of the States of the American
Union, the returns of all the counties are COM
pared and equated at head quarters, the large
ideas of the appraisers of some counties are re-
duced, and the low ones of others raised by so
much per centum to a uniform rate of estimation.
Such a work may be advantageously executed
here under direction of the Minister of Finance,
and must be, to make future assessments an inn
provement upon the first.
1t will be noticed that the total of personal
property, if we include horses and carriages as
above, exceeds the total realty. This is partly to
be explained by the rule of the assessors of the
Honolulu district to deduct mortgages held
within the kingdom and where the holder was
known, from the appraisement ofreal estate. Thus
if BIS estate, worth three thousand dollars, is
mortgaged to Z. for two thousand, only one thou
sand is returned as real estate, and the balance re-
turned in C.is personality. We have no means of
ascertaining the amount out on mortgages, but
know that it is not small.
1t is too soon yet to perceive the benefit of the
increased tax on horses-we know that the press
ure of it has been felt. On the islands of Kauai
and Hawaii they have but just begun to be very
plenty and cheap. Three years since an indif-
ferent mare would purchase in the district of
Kau a flock of from 500 to 900 goats. The over
flow of the surplus of Oahu and the natural in
crease have now brought the supply to fully
equal the demand. The returns would give
about three horses to every two polls; in reality
we believe that there is at least one apiece. One
is reminded of beggars on horseback, y in look
ing, for instance, at the returns from Niihau,
where the personal taxable property averages
only five rails to each man, but there are to every
three men five horses, used only for riding, and
consuming the produce of that fertile and extern
island diameter four miles.
The total of taxes of all kinds averages to each
poll on