The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-09-10
SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 10.
The Issue Presented.


An issue is now presented for the decision of
this community, fairly and squarely,-an issue
which must interest every man, woman and child
in the Kingdom. The Ministry and three or four
capitalists, not satisfied with having defeated all
attempts to repeal or amend the odious Master
and Servant Act, nor with supporting the bonded
labor system in a subsidized Gazette, are now
concentrating their thunders for a terrible on
slaught upon the COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, which
has bad the temerity to speak its mind on subjects
of public interest, "unawed by influence and
unbribed by gain" And we may add, fearless
of '' personal animosity or petty spite"
On Tuesday last, a =" Prospectus - was circu-
lated about town, announcing that on Saturday,
the 18th inst, will be issued the first number of
a weekly newspaper, to be called "The CONNER
ciai Herald" and then follows the platform,
which, with the exception of one OF two note
worthy paragraphs, reads smoothly enough but
in one paragraph appears the clOven hoof.
Read and ponder well
1.-THE Labor Question, now so prominent, will have our care
full consideration. We believe That the Master and servant
Act is, in the main, just right, and fit for the state Of society
The same remark applies TO contracts for labor fr a term Of
years, i~nteLigently entered into and justly enforced"
So then the new Journal goes squarely on the
forced labor side of the question. There is no
mIstaking these words. 1t means,-it intends
TO advocate the entire system of double time, fines,
imprisonment, transfer and sale of contracts, and
indefinite term of servitude, which now obtains
under the present ava very frank and disin-
genuous prospectus, surely. 1t is difficult to i'm
agine any one who would thus boldly defy the
well-kuown and clearly expressed public senti-
ment, without a blush. And indeed, the prime
movers in the scheme to crush the COMMERCIAL
ADVERTISER out of existence, hide themselves be-
hind the thin screen of, So & So, Publishers and
Proprietors.
And here is the issue before the community
removed from the arena of discussion and mar
rowed down to " personal luminosity and petty
spite" The cry of these would-be exponenCs of
public sentIment-an echo of the Maui resolution
is" DouCn toih the ADVERTISER and KUoKoA ,"
This cry-wbich has now become the slogan ~
of the supporters of our shameful national system
of forced servitude,-is re-echOed on the streets of
Honolulu, " Down with the ADVERTISER by
those who are directly or Indirectly concerned or
interested in producing sugar, noD, without re-
gard to the future of the country. We are Of
the country, and for the last fifteen years and
more, we can say, without the imputation of
seIf-laudation, that our Journal has supplied a
want-to quote the words of the Government or
gan in referring to the forthcoming newspaper,
with alterations in the teDse,@" that had long
been felt in this community, namely, an indepen-
dent commercial and political paper, which
was not guided in its course by any feeling of
personal luminosity OF petty spite, but honestly
and independently gave free expression to the
views of a large majority of the people of this
Kingdom" And we have not one particle of
fear as to the issue in appealing, as we DOW do,
to the intelligent and disintereSted people of the
country to say by their action that they approve
of our course in sustaining, by all the means at
our command, the cause of free labor, as indicated
in our views expressed last week.
The violent measures now threatened against
this Journal, the Incorporate and aetionable
words-not only used but w~ritten-which have
been applied to US, are but simple and natural
results of the God-forbidden, conscience-blight
ing system of human bondage. Under such a
system, the holder Of his fellow man in bondage
however much you may try to gid the bitter
pill with legal sophistries, it remains the same
becomes demoralized, and eventually impoyer-
ished. Heaven forbid that history should repeat
itself in these fair isles in this respect.
Look, for an illustration of the slave system,
at the history of the late rebellion in the United
States. There men whoss only sin was an adhe-