The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-12-22

viz printing Office, and practically invades
and tramples on private legitimate rights. Is
this h~ononble? Is it right?
The fact that the government Office was
commenced when there were no facilities for
getting the. public printing done otherwise, is
no Justification; for its continuance at the
present day. The printing trade is as legit-
innate a branch of industry as any in the
kingdom, and why it should be singled out,
and be openly and unjustly oppressed by the
government with the aid of the public funds,
when the Legislature has clearly indicated that
a change is not only desirable but ought to be
made, is not easy of explanation.
We maintain that the government has no
right to Cypress any branch Of industry. If it
chooses to do its own printing, we have no
objection. If it chooses to issue its weekly
newspaper, so be it. If it chooses to spend
$4,000 to Sl5, 900 of the public funds an
nually in sustaining an expensive printing
Office, so be it. But let it confne itself to
and not make itself a competitor in seek
ing the custom work of the town.
We have been forced to these remarks by the
position in which we are placed. We should
not seek to make this matter thus public,
but the relation between an independent news
paper and its patrons is a mutual and z pub
lie relation. In one sense a newspaper may
be called a private enterprise, but in another
sense it is equally a public one, as every sub
scriber has an interest in it. We undertook,
nearly four years ago, at the urgent solicit
alton of the business community, the publ
cation of an independent Journal. which has
been continued to the present to be as well
sustained as when we began it. We embarked
in the enterprise u heavier capital than proba-
bly, any other persons would haye ventured.
No newspaper that has ever been established
here. and very few papers in rural districts
in other countries, are supported solely by
the receipts of the paper itself, but rely
mainly on custom job work. We'll knowing
this, we furnished ample materiel to do all
the work offered to us, and in so doing
have heretofore kept the large expenses of the
establishment within its receipts. Few per-
sons not practically experienced in printing,
know how very expensive it is to maintain
a printing Office and newspaper. Oar annual
outlay for this establishment, with the utmost
economy, is nearly 50 ,OoO. Our receipts from
the newspaper, including about 600 subscrip-
tions and advertisements, does not exceed
So,OOO. Lie dhih iiaS DCS hou ~ "
receipts of job work, which has left us an
nually a small excess, with which we have
been satisfied. So long as there has been no
actual loss, we have been content to publish
for the public of the islands a newspaper,
of which we can say of every number, that
we have not been ashamed of our labors.
But the government, Judging from the acts
of its employees, is determined neither to
be honorable nor just. During the last sum-
mer it was successful in bribing away from
our employ, by the offer of largely increas-
ed wages, our master workman, with whom
we had had no dissatisfaction, and who
had the knowledge of every branch of our
printing business and prices quite as well
as ourselves, and could use that knowledge
to favor the government press and to work
to our detriment, if SO disposed. All this
was done on the part of the director of the
government press, without his having the
manliness to first speak to the employer on
the subject. This act, which is universally
considered with tradesmen one of the mean
est to which an employer can resort, is
what the government has had the impudence
to do with US. Not less unjust was it in
the government to increase the salary or
wages of an office to a figure which no hon.
est trade can afford to pay for the same
service.
But with all this we should not COM
plain, were not the machinery, the funds
and the influence of the government brought
to bear to our injury in other ways. The
government cannot afford to do its work
cheaper than We can, without the public
treasury suffering therefrom. We have lost
L.. I'll .o11x Io,ea &c fha old
which the public treasury affords to its office
in making up any deficiency. When viewed
in this light. this government press becomes
a machinery of oppression, and a gross i'm
position, which no industry or economy on
our part can overcome.
Here, then, is the position in which we are
placed. If the government is determined to
continue its press on its present unfair basis,
if it is determined to prostitute the public funds
to sustain >it-fnnds towards which we are
taxed, and our own press has paid its quota,
though we believe the government press and
property were all exempted, if the govern
ment can afford to employ half a dozen persons
at salaries from $1,000 to $4,000 each to drum
up custom work for its Office, we shall have
no alternative left us but to discontinue the
Commercial at the end Of its present volume.
No one of our subscribers would regret such
a step more than we, but no one of them can
reasonably ask rs to continue to sustain 80
heavy an enterprise ut a loss. We have not
lost anything as yet from it, but present in
d~ications are that, owing to the extra efforts
made by the government to withdraw from.
us our customary job work. our income from
that source will be SO reduced, that the re-
of tho establishments will hardly moot ita
expenses, or make it no object for us to waste
our time and labor in continuing the paper.
But our readers will say, Is there no remedy?
This evil is very easily remedied, if the gov
eminent is disposed to act honorably in it.