The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-10-05

Tine second of a series Of articles on the subject
OF " Labor and Population - in the Gazette Of
this week, is sufficiently pronounced and radical
in its tone to indicate that it is the production Of
one Of that class OF sensational writers who,
some three or four years ago when this journal
was in other hands, ran such 4 tilt at planters
and plantations in these columns. We confess to
no little surprise in observing our contemporaries
course at this ~juncture. At a time when the one
enterprise Of the country upon which nearly
every other resource is based is suffering from de-
preston, among other causes mainly from the
scarcity Of labor, the government newspaper,
without a word Of comment, explanation or dis
approval, gives to the world a loosely written
article from an anonymous source, in which a
picture, drawn from imagination alone, is given
Of our labor system that is calculated to still
further depress and discourage our plantation in
terests. Government, we are aware, is by statute
held irresponsible for anything that may charac-
terize the course of the Gazette, but the moral
responsibility Of providing the channel for the
utterance of unfounded and injurious statements
against a large and influential class of the COM
munity, cannot so easily be avoided. While
neither editor or government are q" responsible for
the opinions expressed by any correspondent
yet we doubt if the government can deny it's re-
sponsibility in the conduct of its press, so far as
to see to it that the columns OF its official organ
are not used for the purpose of disappearing
and hbeling a whole class in the community
men who constitute the principal producers of
the Kingdom.
We seriously doubt if the writer to whom we
refer has ever visited a single plantation of i'm
portance, yet he plainly gives his readers here
and abroad to understand, that he knows that our
planters lodge their laborers in ONE horrible
manner, that would not g pass the inspection of
an enlightened, humane man - that practically
no accommodation are afforded for the men in
taking their meals that no proper care is taken
Of them when sick in short, that the laborers on
our plantations do not receive from the managers
the ordinary treatment and care that is bestowed
upon brutes. All this is qualified by the sugges-
ton that the existence of these abuses is not at
all times the fault of the planter, but Of his subor-
dinates. This qualification however, and per-
haps Intentionally, adds the sin of criminal care
Iessness to the indictment against the planter,
now presented through the official organ of the
government at the precise moment when he is
suffering loss from the scarcity of labOrers, and
we are earnestly looking aoOub iE tue eOuFce
from which 20 supply his necessity for more.
In the same issue containing the inconsiderate
and unjust attack on the planters, isa contributed
article of a somewhat different stripe, that paints
a gloomy picture of the national decadence
towards which the writer believes we are rapidly
fastening. 1t would appear to be the chosen
mission of the first of these philanthropic scrib-
blers to do all in his puDy power to hasten the
catastrophe, from which, however, the last gra-
ciously promises to point the road OF deliveranee.