The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-09-17
Correspondence Pac. Commercial Advertiser.l

What shall be done with the Moiasses.
Mr.. EDITOR Il learn that the Chinese sugar
planters ae Paukaa (Samsing) are letting their mo-
lasses run to waste, thinking it not worth the con-
tainers to put it in. The natives are after it with q
rush, and for purposes not pleasant for a temperate
man to think Of What will your merchants, coopers
and ~freighters think of that .-and the little scape-
graces about your wharves with empty straws and
occupation gone ? ones heart is grieved to think of
them, sure.
This is not the first time the same thing has oc-
Cured at these islands, and it IS suggestive OF anx-
ious forbodings for the future prosperity of our grow
ing sugar interests. To save that important article,
molasses, and throw it into the channels of trade, is
a matter that concerns every business man and me-
chanic in Honolulu. Cannot some plan be suggested
to guard against such waste of property, in times
like these, when prices are so low as not to pay for
g containers 20 Make it into rum the proper
candidates for Dashaway clubs will say. 1 am not
exactly a believer in the divine origin of rum, or that
an Internal, serpentine, steaming, fzzling, Tuning
still is the only palladium to prosperous sugar grow
ing. But if business men of spare capital will not
furnish the needy planter with containers and take
his molasses at the plantation, and at prices some
thing like satisfactory, 1 fear the clamor for the
privilege of manufacturing it into rum will eventu-
ally prove too strong for its enemies to resist.
That the manufacture of rum would prove pro6ta-
BILE to the planter here, as it does elsewhere, there is
no doubt. With our present differential duties on
imported liquors it could be made, with suitable leg
islation, a mine Of wealth to our planters, and they
are fully aware of it. Hence the difficulty to stay
the rum tide, and we may as well look the beast in
the face first as last. So long as people will consume,
80 long will they find s%uppliers, and since, per force,
we must legislate upon the subject, it makes little diff
ference whether we go around it to the left or to the
right. The efforts on the part of the treaty-making
powers to flood this country with grog, have met with
little favor among honest, disinterested men. Misery
and poverty are the only blessings it ever confers upon
its consumers. All men do not think so. Some will
make money out of it. The enterprisiug and not
over-conscientious on matters of total abstinence are
the ones to do it, and it is to be presumed there are
many such among us. The efficacy Of temperance
legislation while ~hampered with our present treaties,
is certainly doubtful. Legislation seems to make
poor Roadway against bad liquor and bad example
which has gone abroad in the land, nursing a taste
for the ''stuf'' until the poorest has not only learned
to drink, but to manufacture it too. One would
think gun barrels were put to poor work in shooting
men, but when put to manufacturing blue-ruin, phi
lanthropists may well shudder at the uses arts and
sciences may come to. If rum distilling is to be
legalized on these islnnds, it is a satisfaction to know
that q better article will be furnished to topers than
is imported or at present manufactured. One might
feel o little revenged if an act legalizing the distilling
and traffic were put in such a shape as virtually to
prohibit further imports of liquors. about which 20
years Of bullying and diplomatic tom foolery have
been sacrificed in securing it to parties interested.
say nothing of the national degradation growing i'm
mediately out OF 1t. Hno.