The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1873-08-30
THE DISTILLATIoN QUESTION.

THE DISTILLATI0E QUESTION.
In discussing the question Of licensing the man
u~lacturc Of rum in these islands, while the moral
and social aspects Of the subject are important
and should receive fall consideration, the practi-
cal must not and will not be lost sight Of. II Is
simply sensational and the merest bathos TO fran
tically call on people To- ..staBd by the main
brace which will irresistibly remind some Of
%. splicing" that useful piece Of r~igging-because
the subject Of di-tillatiOn Il opened for discussion.
When the extraordinary and doubtless questiOna-
bic statement Is made in staring capitals that rum
distillatiOn Cirst) and rum drinking (second) de-
stroyed fifty thousand people here thirty or forty
years ago, when both were free, and we are told
that to license it (which?) again, will destroy
another fifty thousand (that we have not gotl in
another eighteen years-the inference desired 10
be drawn Is that at present the natives cannot OBJ
tain spirits. We all know, TO our sOrrow, how
false such an inference would be. The Custom
House tables Of the importation and consumption
Of spirits viii tell the tale. They viii show, that
while the floating population-the crews Of whale
~ships-which was formerly credited with the
large consumption Of spirits, has Of late years
fallen of almost entirely, ye; the quantity Of
spirits withdrawn from the Custom House stores
for domestic consumption has steadily increased,
and that it now exceeds the quantity so withdrawn
at any period during the flush times Of the Whal-
ing business. And the simple truth-grieyous
and sad it If to acknowledges that the natives
can and do procure spirits with about the same
facility as do foreigners. What .'pretentious
hypocrisy - then for the Gazette to make such a
ToI,roug a, ,b.,,, :. f. ~,,, :, ,,I.u 1900
one soberly inquiries whether our ~plantatic ms
could p~roftably and safely distill their SUR ,lus
and refuse into 4 merchantable article
While thus exposing the inconsistent and III
diculOus attitude Of the Gazette in It's fran tic rush
for q" the maiR-brace,' let us not be mn derstood
as advocating the distillation project On the
contrary, we are not sure but that to allow the
manufacture of rum in these islands would only
be adding to the existing evils with which we
have to contend. Not that the manufacture of
rum is, per Sc, an evil, but because; we should
seriously doubt the permaneney or efficiency of
any legal barriers that can be erected to prevent
Its consumption, more or less, by onr Owl people.
d" Love laughs at lOcksmiths," and so does the
appetite for rum. The men who own our planta-
tions are rs i body, too high minded and honora-
wv ~ HhE6IA NN oaGlANAhHA NIahN lutI hOull
knowingly allow of any inlraction of the law as
to furnishing To natives,-were they indeed
minded to avail themselves of the privilege of dis
tilling spirits,-n0r wOnld it be to their interest
to do so. But the door once opened, it is sug-
gcsted that We might fRd here and there a small
plantation springing mp, whose proprietor, max
ing rum his speciality, might haply be devoid of
principle and un~scrNpHlOus Tor gain. The induce
mcnts for men of this stripe 10 embark in the
business, were 3 once l~egalized, it is asserted
would be great, and the amount of mischief they
could accomplish, and the trouble they might oc-
casiOn the police and the courts, would be some
thing fearful 10 contemplate. But to those OBJ
%jectiOns it may be answered that the granting of
licenses could be at the discretion of n Minister,
so that no unworthy person would be likely to OBJ
tain one; and farther, that every drop of the rum
manufactured would pass at once from the still
into the custody and keeping of the government
excise officer. There is indeed much that can be
said on both sides of the question. The planters
are the persons mainly and particularly interested
in its decision, and it is for them to say whether
it is for their interest, ON the whole, that distilla-
ton outside of Honolulu shall be legalized.
By the Aes of Both of December, 1864, the
Minister of the Interior is authorized to grant
one or more licenses for the establishment of n
~distillery or distilleries in this city, the price ofa
license being fixed at fifty dollars per annum, for
five years. 1t has been estimated, from reliable
data, that 4 d%istilling apparatus capable of con-
verting from $50 to 1000 gallons of molasses per
hour, complete with boiler, steam and hand
pumps, will cost in Europe, delivered on board
ship, about S. 400.
But, as we have already remarked, it is not
cheap sentimentality that is needed in consider
ing this subject, but the logic of figures. There
is n deal of common sense in the observation of
our correspondent of last week to the effect that
there would attach no more moral d~epravity to 4
cask of Hawaiian made rum than to one imported
from abroad and placed in the Custom House to
be withdrawn for consumption-more especially
when the former shall be intended for export,
and is prevented from doing any mischief here.
Whatever may come of this discussion eventually,
it would be interesting to he informed, by any |
one conyersant with the facts, rs to what proper
ton of spirits can be manufactured to every
hundred tons Of sugar produced, and something
like an approximation of the cost of manufactur-
ing. The estimate given above of the cost of Il
distilling apparatus from Europe is, it will be
observed, calculated upon 4 very large scale.
A FORMER SUGGESTION REVIVED.