The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1863-07-02
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.oh year. During the period that has
-psed since its establishment, many changes
have taken place in the metropolis and through
out the group, and many who We're then our
most. prominent and active business men have
left us, either for other spheres of activity or
for their final rest. Numerous enterprises, some
Of them Of lasting benefit to our national in
dustry, have sprung up all over the group,
promising TO furnish to the people ample en-
Ployment, and even threatening to render labor
scarce. While our population is unquestiOn-
ably still on a decline, nothing can tend so
much to arrest it and restore health TO the peo-
pie as this change which we have noted in
respect to general industry. Unless industry
can be practiced, it is useless to talk of, preach
or enact reform measures, sanitary commits
siOns and other health theories. With the prac-
tlce of this virtue, other appliances may serve
as beneficial aids. Taking this view of the
changes of the past seven years, it affords q
pleasant retrospect, and promises an suspicious
future for our people.
This journal was established and has been
conducted to represent the liberal or conserva-
tive views of the foreign community, avoiding
as much as possible an ultra or radical position
on any question. How well it has succeeded,
- DN 80 AACbA bAN AhS LiiNs ~
outstanding the general decline in business,
and perhaps in our foreign population, there
has never been u time when it enjoyed a larger
patronage than at present. 1t is no easy task
to conduct a paper successfully, even under the
most favorable circumstances much less in a
community made up of such varied sentiments
as the foreign population of this group, which
is brought together from every quarter of the
globe, and imbued with the most dissimilar
ideas. To please all is next to impossible, and
to speak the truth without offending some, is
equally difficult. This same difficulty exists in
every part Of the world. On this point, an
American exchange has the following pertinent
remarks
Next to poverty, delinquent subscribers. and duns, to which
~ had t cOni nm If a n neriSd; - pam eme as ~ Hnu " Tn
and as many pens as his paper has readers, he could never hope
to please all for they cannot please themselves. Does he speak
out in language plain and simple: 1t is mere commonplace
the taste Of the learned is not gratifei ; it is fit only for the
vulgar, Does he aspire to elegance, The unlearned cannot
understand and the learned regard him as a peilntic fellow,
dabbIing in what he has no pretensions to. Does he show his
II he hides himself beneath a mass Of equivOcal matter, he is
tepporizi1gi If he Pneishes extracts better than he he can write,
with original matter, he might have given something better from
and unInterestng and if he writes on plain and familiar sub
jects, everybody knew them before. Does he attempt 10 in
stIuct' He needs to be instructed. Does he use his endeavOrs
to amused 1t Is light and trihing.
oIi AcIdh at iohi VI bchs Tdlstu- aHl Oe WbuN1
suppose this might satisfy, but let an editor try the experiment,
and he soon will find out his mistake. For such is the power of
envy, that nc one will thank him for prains him, and every
body will hate him for praising others. Some people are fond
OF hearing their neighbOrs sandered but if you attemp, to
point out either the vice or folies OF mankind, every one will
md something Applicable to himself and here asain you en-
conduct a paper to please him and Of course TO offend every
but for an editor to please himself If lie can, and hazard the
consequence II he does this he viii he certain of satisfying
one, which Is more than lac can say if lac tries 10 please all"
Not long since, there was a dinner given by
the publishers in Rprliu Germany ar which |
some two hundred editors and authors were
present. Among such L number of men devoted
to the press, there must have been much said
worthy of note. The speech of Victor Hugo,
who was present, and who is both an editor
press, which we insert:
Gentlemen, the Press is the daylight of the world. and in all
daylight there is something divine. Thought is more than a
right-it is the very breath Of man. Whoever letters thought
attacks man himself. To speak, to write, to publish, are things,
so far 5 the right is concerned, absolutely Identical: They are
sonOrous waves of thought. OF ali these circIes-al these radt-
eter OF the Press ; the diameter OF civilization Every Il minu-
Il ci9 gf y u, thg ho VI fsr 81 the we Pre-. -. + thi iI froHisa by " a di Pnn"I io1. OF
ferei with, there we see the nutrition OF the human family inter-
rupted. Gentlemen, the mission Of our days is to change the
bases Of society, to create a real order; and to substitute every
tions, winch is the colossal labor of an age, nothing resists the
power Of the Press, applying its tTactile force to Catholicism,
and Of ideas. The Press is
the living clarion-it sounds the rereiHe Of the races, it an
nounce. alond the dawn Of right, i divines the coming day and
rouses the world.
To-day, there are certain questions which are really he ques-
ion OF the century. and winch stand here before US, inevita-
BILE There is no middle course. We must dash ourselves
upon them, or seek refuge in them. Society is sailing irresiSti-
bly, in that direction. These questions are the theme of the
painful book Of which you have just spoken so magnihcenly-
PaupeTism, parasitism- the production and distribution Of
wealth., money, credit, labor, wages; the extinction of proieta-
rianisu, the progressive decrease of crime, misery and prosti-
tuition the rights of women, which are to elevate half the
human family from a state Of tutelaEe the rights of childhood,
which eNact-I repeat. which erdCt gratutous and obligatory
eiucation-the rights of the soul, which imply religious liberty.
Here are the problems With a free press there is light above
these questions they become practicable. We see their preci-
pices and their openings we can approach them, penetrate
them. Once approached and penetrated-that is to say, solved,
they will save the world Without the press We shall have pro-
nothing but their vast cliffs can be discerned the entrance may
well be missed, and society go down in shipwreck. Destroy the
light house, and the port becomes a reef!'
Our object has always been to supply Il news
paper which shall be n medium of public
thought as free from censure as is possible.
Perfection is out of the question, and to please
all, we cannot expect. But as heretofore. we
shall perseyere in pursuing what we believe to
be a right course, confident that in the end
such a course will meet public confidence. The
and influence of this paper has ever been
on the side of right, justice and truth and
such we trust it Will always be.