The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1871-06-24
The House that Jack BuiIt.L
BLACK d AUID,
Publishers and PrOprietOrt

short-slghtedness placed themselves III d "eo
position, it is interesting to note the desperate
shifts to which they will resort in the endeavor
to convince themselves, if not others, that they
and their surroundings care not what they
SEEM" To what base uses may they come at
last How they will waste their ingenuity IN
endeavoring II to disprove that which is as palpable
to every one as that the sun shines at noon day;
how by turns they will wheedle and hatter, or
mysteriously threaten,-if they fancy they have
the power to enforce their threatsl All this is
remarkably exemplifed in the ministerial diatribe
of the Gazette of Wednesday, on the unfortunate
hotel project, which, rather sooner than even we
had anticipated, appears to have assumed to the
Government the proportions of a good sized
elephant. Every word of our article on "The
Hotel Project in our issue of May 9th last,
can now be read again with clearer significance.
We were told several weeks ago, that the pub
lie had heard enough about the hotel that no
body believed the ADVERTISERS uncomfortable
way of 90 putting things; " but that, on the con-
trary, all was snug and serene; and that in
short, " the goose hung high" Now, however,
a change has come Ger the spirit of their dream,
and a queer melange of an editorial is the result,
evidently a twice or thrice laid production,
whereby, in endeavoring to cover up the truth
by wordy sophistry, it is most numerically ex-
posed in all its nakedness.
First, We are presented with a picture of the
editor, who, supplemented man, appears to have
been SO most unaccountably in the dark as to
have just awakened to the fact that 8 subscribers
to the hotel bonds would not pay their assess
ments in regard TO which, we could have
enlightened him by the statement that not
twenty-five per cent. on twenty thousand dollars
of the subscriptions had been paid. But he runs
off in his grief to the Minister, who binds up his
wounds by telling him that he did not know that
any gentlemen intended to refuse payment, and.
pleasure is impaired and received by the knowl-
edge that the rumor was I" entirely unfounded."
This being of course true, and the disturbed
ton of calm serenity,-whence the necessity or
the policy of what follows?
Divested of its verbiage of special pleading,
the article under review means simply this, in
plain language:
TT action of the Ministry in regard to the
hotel project, as shown up in the ADVERTISER,
(confound IT'D has become so unpopular that
numbers of those who subscribed in the outset
from motives of public spirit and with the idea
that they were making a safe if not a paying in
yestment, have now become thoroughly convinced
that they were misled to put it mildly, they
have been under a considerable degree of misap-
prehension and so intend to wash their hands
of this hotel project altogether. Now we [says
the Gaeettel know that this rs not SO. We don't
believe it is possible that amy one should think
for a moment of endeavoring to avoid his re-
sponsibility in the matter But if it shall prove
that it is so, we will force them to pay in the
courts. To be sure, 8 it is said that courts de-
cline to enforce subscriptions of this nature, and
We know very well that is the rule, but then the
style is different in this case, and we guess the
8 material ingredients of the decision will be in
our favor, when we do sue. We don't undertake
to say beforehand just what the words of the de-
cision will be, but we shall come out safe, any
how. In fact, we don't believe there will be any
legal proceedings at all. 1t makes us feel bad,
however, to have people talk about it in this
way. And we shouldn't like it, if We were de-
PENDANT in such a case, and got judgment against
us, then to have the public tell us it served US
right, and that we were not TO be trusted any
more in business transactions. Here we have
gone on and hired men to make concrete in any
quantity. and bought materials, lin our own ring
of course) and have commenced to build on mag
nifcent plans, and now because we have not
asked people to pay up, will any one decline to
do so? Certainly not! Now just look at it,
please, dear subscribers. The work is in good
hands mo one denies that, so far as the builder
is concerned it is going forward with rapidity
and economy it will soon be finished, and 1t
will be so handsome a structure, and we shall all
feel so proud when we can say to strangers, : We
too, have a hotel Just think of all this, and
don't let US have any more little unpleasantness
about the funds
That is the substance of the oracle's utter
ances about the hotel project, when rendered into
plain English. Is it not pitifully ludicrous?
We confess to but very little faith in these
vaporing threats of legal proceedings against
those who were incautious enough to put their
names to the subscription paper. Whom the gods
wish to destroy they first make mad, but it is
hardly credible that the Ministry have arrived at
that degree of insanity as to endeavor to build a
hotel by enforced subscriptions. The first step
in that direction would inevitably result in leav-
ing the walls of concrete in their present posi-
ton, a monument of ministerial folly, and a
caution to unwary subscribers " in the future.
Under all the circumstances, instead of launching
out in editorials that only tend to their own
it will be much wiser for the Ministers
to go on and finish the {" structure - which thew
have begun. We doubt if any one will begrudge
them either the glory or profit of the enterprise.
And here we may further remark, that all the
dissatisfaction that has arisen among the subscrib-
ers to the hotel fund, is entirely due to the failure
by Ministers to carry out the understood and i'm
piled arrangement entered into at the only meet
ing which was ever held. At that meeting. the
fullest confidence was expressed in the Minister
Of the Interior, who with Messrs. Torbert and
were designated by vote to attend to de-
of the project, and as a matter of course,