The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1871-03-18
TIE PACIFIC
Commercial A6bertiser.
TIE PA
SATURDAY, MARCH Is.
Two Birds with one Stone.


The Government organ of this week, feeling
evidently the necessity of making an effort to
say something in response to our last showing up
of the case of ." Wood versus Stone,'' devotes
two leaders to the subject, by two different
I" hands at the bellows J
(" Insatfate archer, could not one sufices~
The first, entitled 50 How TO do t,"-how not to
do it, would have been more appropriate,-con-
tains an amount of p~ersifage "a good word,
reader, for which see Webster) which smacks so
plainly of the Foreign Office that one could pick
it out in the dark. 1t has the familiar rollicking
style of treating a subject when no sound argu-
ments are to be had, and the wonderful facility
of Juggling in inapposite comparisons, that I'M
mistakably show the born diplolnatist and cut
out for-an-editor who looms up in the Govern
ment House. Who else under heaven, let us
ask, would have gone all the way to Metz and
BazaIne for an Illustration of a hotel project in
Honolulu, or have let out his military proelivities,
(inseparable, perhaps, from the position of head
of our War Department. by so clearly intimating
that the Commanding General " in this case
will not waste precious time in taking counsel
with any one. Thus it appears that we have a
Todleben among US, who will cut this Gordian
knot of a hotel building-ahd do tie running OF
the affair besides, whenever it IS built. The
whole gist of the article is.-diyested OF the
aforesaid persiaage, that the Ministry have no
faith in or respect for anybody's opinion or suS-
gestions outside of their OWN ring. After re-
peated inquiries in the columns of this Journal
as to why the usual course in similar enterprises
had not been adopted of advertising for plans,
the tardy announcement appears ON "Wednesday
that Z. sketches of a ground plan and sugges-
tons - will be received until April LIST. We
have no desire to discourage any one from fur
nisbing plans or suggestions, but the amount of
attention they will be likely to receive is fore
shadowed by the apt illustration of the self
willed commander at Sebastopol.
The second article. by another writer, attempts
to deal with the subject of earthquakes, but is
quite as devoid of argument as the first. In the
lace of our plain and conclusive showing in favor
of the erection of wooden buildings in preference
20 stone. the writer sets forth simply a string of
dull platitudes. So long as it deals in such
harmless purring about earthquake visits once in
fifty or a hundred and Fifty years, there is no fear
of the Gazette being accused of getting sensa-
tional. If it can show us by any course of
reasoning to which we can pin our belief, that
for the next fifty or n hundred years no more
damage will be done by earthquakes here than in
the past, we will acknowledge to a sensation, and
withdraw our objection to stone structures, but
not till then. But to go into the erection OF
costly stone buildings on the mere strength of a
guess that there will not be any more shakes, or
that if there are, no damage will be done, is to
say the least, the reverse of prudent. To go to
history for an Illustration the inhabitants o.
Hereulaneum and Ponpeii had less cause to fear
the catastrophe that came upon them, as, genera
tion after generation, they lived in luxury and
Iancied security, than have we on Oahu TO an
ticipate the possibility, at some future day, 0.
such a shaking of the dry bones as Hilo and Kau
got a short. time ago, when, in the twinkling of
an eye. every stone and brick structure was
leYeled with the ground. 1t is the blindest
faulty to build on the strength of a hope that
such an earthquake will never occur again.
What has been, may be again, and we have no
possible security that it will not come at any
moment. There is no sensationalism about this.
The earthquake at San Francisco in 1868 is re-
ferred to, and it is stated that there they are still
constantly erecting splendid stone buildings.
True, but with what extraordinary cost do they
now build? In view of the possible recurrence
of the earthquakes, of which they have had an
experience by nc means equal to ours on these
islands, they now take every imaginable, pre-
caution in the use of huge iron braces and
girders, disconnected floors and partitions, etc.
The writer says that our article, to reply to
which he 80 signally fails, = seems to have been
written by some one interested in the lumber
trade" Not one whit more, neighbor, than was
yours written by n dealer in bricks or a dauber
of mortar. He would indeed be u poor mason
who could not succeed in constructing a better
earthquake-proof edifce. The insinuation that
we are employing our {" talents, capital and
labor in the interests of a particular branch
of business. for 'no inconsiderable remunera-
ton from those engaged in the business . is a
gratuitous fling, worthy of a writer of the Gazette
stamp. Our views on the subject discussed are,
we are happy to say, in accord with those enter
tanned by the public at large, as we have ample
testimony. But this journal, let the organ re-
member, IS not subsidized. We boldly speak our
continents without fear or favor, asking and ex-
pecting no other 81 uncomfortable remuneration "
for our labors in the public interests, than a fair
opportunity 10 earn an honest livelihood and the
support of tho community. A fair field however for
private enterprise in our line cannot be expected
IN the presence of a Government press supported
out of the public funds; but it is adding insult to
injury for that press to accuse us of being bribed
to support any particular interest.
Suspend Judgment.
t. ;s Nv sbonId he n N invariable ruIe with