The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1871-07-19

the work of founding this institution aided by
the earnest sympathy and active cooperation of
my children, who Justly regarded as the richest
portion of their inheritance that part Of my
wealth which desired to consecrate to the pub
lie welfare. Hence my last lesson for the young
is to marry at the proper age when, and not be-
fore. they can see the way clear to decent and
comfortable support, and thus fulfill the first law
of nature with high and holy sense Of its happi-
ness and duties the greatest and most serious in
the path Of life.
do not pretend to prescribe any standard OF
expenditure for others, and l am quite ready to
subscribe to the doctrine that 4 just and faithful
trustee should be literally paid for his services,
aud should not be restricted in the reasonable
qualification of his desires, so long as the rights
of others are not thereby infringed and desire
to give the fullest recognition TO the sacredness
of private property, and the conservation OF capt.
tai as for the best interests Of society and all the
members thereof but cannot shut my eyes to
the fact that the production Of wealth Is not the
work of any one man. and the acquisition OF great
fortunes is not possible without the cooperation
of multitudes Of men, and that therefore the ln-
dividuals to whose lot these fortunes fall, wheth-
er by inheritance or the laws Of production and
trade. should never lose sight of the fact that as
they hold them only by the will of society, ex-
pressed in statute law so they should administer
them as trustees for the benefit of society as in
cucated by the moral law
When rich men are thus brought to regard
themselves as trustees, and poor men learn to be
industrious, economical, temperate, seli-denylng,
and diligent in the acquisition acknowledge then
the deplorable strife between capital and labor
tending to destroy their fundamental, necessary
and irrelragable harmony, will cease, and the
world will no longer be afflicted with such unnatu-
raj industrial conflicts as we have seen during the
past century in every quarter of the civilized
globe and latterly, on so great scale in this
country, arrayng those whom nature intended to
be firm allies and lnseparable friends into hostile
camps, in which the great law of love and mu-
tual forbearance is extinguished by selfish pas
sions The law of force, whether expressed in
trade associations, preventing other men from ex-
ereisug their inalienabe right to labor where
they can fnd work, or in combinations OF capital
lists seeking by lock-outs to close up the avenues
of labor, are equally reprehensible and should ne
yer be allowed, under any prOvocation whatever
TO take the place of the divine law: "Whatso-
ever We would that men should do unto you, do
mill
tural and criminal substitution ever be possible,
if poor men will remember that it is the duty, and
therefore the right, of every poor man to strive
to become rich by honest, intelligent and patient
labor and if rich men will remember that the
possession of wealth. which is the fruit Of the
general effort, confers no right to its use as an
engine of oppression or coercion upon any class
which is concerned in its production.
Let me then record that, during long life
passed in active business, l have never known
any but evil consequences to all classes, and es-
pecally to the innocent, to result from strikes,
lock-outs or other fOrcbe measures designed to
interfere with the steady and regular march of
productive industry, and l feel justified in an
earnest appeal to both workmen and capitalists
henceforth to regard each other as equals and
friends and to initiate the great example, so re-
Gently set by the enlightened governments of
Great Britain and the United States, in the sub
mission of their differences to arbitration; and
not to expect to reform social evils by cOmbina-
tons designed to force either side into the accept
ance of unpaatable terms, by the stern logic of
starvation and indiscriminate ruin. Reform, to |
be of any permanent value, must be based upon
personal virtue, not force; and it seems to me
that the millennium will not be far off when each |
individual shall set about reforming himself "a
Their than society, and conforming his life to the
great law of loving God and his fellow-men.
While thank you, my young frlends-I had
almost said my children-lor this manifestation
Of your respect and gratitude, so touching be.
cause so full of love- let me ask you to accept of
this feeble but heartfelt reply as a kind of last
will and testament of the garnered experience of
IN old friend, whose days are almost numbered,
md who asks only to be remembered as zone who
owed his feIlow-men."