The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-09-02

THE HISTORY of the session of 1876, whenever
fairly written out, will exhibit a continuous
succession Of Ministerial blunders and mis-
management. More than six months ago we
asked the question in these columns Which
Of the present Ministry is fitted to be a leader
in a Hawaiian Legislature p" and the event
has shown that our forebodings of their failure
were well founded. One hundred days in
session, at an expense to the country of twenty
thousand dollars-and what have they accom-
plished? A few unimportant Acts have been
passed, which are mostly triAing amendments
to existing laws but not a single measure
looking to the progress and prosperity Of the
country has been brought forward by the
MISUNDERSTANDING perhaps the tardily intro
duced net to cnrry into effect the treaty of
reciprocity. Month after month they have sat
and dawdled away the time, while a native
House without an administration leader has
amused itself with crudities on points of order
and the merest balderdash. Nor will it do to
lay the blame on the native members or ascribe
the pitiful result to ga ~factious opposition"
The well-known fact is that the government has
had n working majority from the outset,
with which they might have carried almost
any measure; and as to the morale of the
membership, it has compared advantageously
with any previous Assembly in point of order
and sObriety. The material, as Hawaiian Legis-
latures go, was and is good enough; the grand
fault has been in the entire absence of tact and
ability to manage on the part of the Ministry
in one word, incapacity.
They went into the Assembly absolutely
without n policy, and evidently trusting to luck
to carry them through they have failed to
hatch a policy out of the suggestions coming
from members, as they have more than once
intimated was their desire and now, as the
lengthy and Improbable session is drawing to
n close, while the wearied representatives are
anxious to, go home because their means are
exhausted and will consequently consent to
anything, the Ministers expect to accomplish
all necessary legislation within ten days! The
country will look with no little solicitude to
learn whether this necessary legislation " will
include the adoption OF the suicidal new tariff,
the plan for which was laid before the Assembly
some time since, and a new schedule of internal
taxation-among the rest n modest rate OF one
per cent. on real estate-whereby, to supply an
estimated deficiency of forty or fifty thousand
dollars, it is proposed to collect three or four
times that amount out of the pockets of the
people. The people, in this instance, are the
foreign element in our population, n minority
in numbers, but representing the majority of
the capital, and who contribute by far the
largest portion Of the revenues of the govern
ment. And now to these must come home the
~question-what confidence can you repose in a
Ministry who have shown themselves SO totally
incompetent to administer the government for
the interests and welfare of the governed? Can
you doubt, from the experience of the past,
that under their management of public affairs,
the 81 great expectations :" you have cherished
for the moral and material advancement of the
country during the coming seven years of
reciprocal commerce, will be doomed to abject
disappointment? Will foreign capital confidingly
risk itself to build up the country with perma-
nent investments under such conditions as we
present? Let us pause, and seriously consider
whether in duty to ourselves and our adopted
country, we can longer remain apathetic
observers of the demorallzed political situation.