The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-03-31
The Governments Organ ON government
Affairs.

One rarely ever meets with a cooler specimen OF
assumption than is contained in the leader of the
Ministerial organ of Saturday, commencing with
flourish of cracked ~.rumpets, in which somebody
is entreated to tell it in Gath" Tell what?
Why, something that amounts to a plump false
hood-that the property tax passed the legisla-
ture simply and purely because the Ministers took
the measure in hand-that they forced the mea-
sure-they made the Houses swallow it," We
are reminded of the trite saying that '''the impu-
dence of some people is only excelled by their
ignorance Are the Ministers and their 9 trum-
peters, aware that the measure was initiated in,
and passed by, the House Of Representatives in the
session of 1855, while the House of Mobiles, Min
listers and all, were still involved in " the dark
night of doubt" So long ago as 1852 the in
itiatory step towards imposing a property tax
was proposed in the House of Representatives,
but fell to the ground through the opposition of
government officials. The present session, again,
the measure was first introduced into the lower
House by the report of the Joint Commission on
the new code. 1t was there discussed, amended
and finally passed, without any assistance or in
reference from the Ministers, and was sent to the
upper House. The lower House, majority. at
lpdSI"W1S III IINOT VI tiit VIC
opposition coming, as we are informed, from
those members who hold government positions.
The House required no compulsion to make it
:" swallow" the property tax. the ministers are
perfectly welcome to the task and the credit OF
prescribing political pills and boluses to the
House of Mobiles, but the House of Representa-
tives, we imagine, will repudiate the soft i'm
parchment. The fact is notorious that the pop
ularity of the Ministers and their pet schemes in
the lower House is not such ~ would warrant a
Ministry in England or anywhere else remaining
in Office a single day. In such a condition of things,
it is rather astonishing to note the brazen man
ner in which the organ claims for its patrons the
sole credit of forcing the passage of a popular
measure.
Aside from the false statements of the Govern
ment organ referred to, the same article contains
a gross attack on two worthy Mobiles, as (Eean
and insulting as any that we have ever observed,)
simply because they voted against the measure,
and i'm accordance with their convictions of right.
The government organ shamelessly says: "Let
them, like culprits in general, enjoy the benefit
of a doubt We hardly need say that.the No
bles SO basely pointed out by the oficial organ as
~culprits, are Messrs. L. Haalelea and Chas. kanai-
ma, than whom two more worthy Mobiles do not
hold seats in the upper House. They are large
landholders it is true, but their vote ON the final
passage of the bill did not arise so much from OPP
position to the measure as from the unjust opera
ton it would have on those who, like them, held
many lands under the old feudal system. In its
effect they consider the law unconstitutional, in
asmuch as it does not operate on all property
holders alike.
Is this the mode the bigoted organ of the gov
eminent purposes in future to resort to g force
its measures on to doubling Mobiles? This the
way in which the Ministers IS make them swallow
it?" "That IS it in plain English" And yet
the press that so openly and grossly aliases a por-
ton of the Mobiles, for the exercise of the free
and unalienable right OF thinking and voting as
they choose, that press is considered an ~indispen-
sible tool of the Ministers, and even now the votes
of these abused Mobiles are sought to continue its
existence in the hands of INSCRIPTIONS and irres-
ponsible men.