The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-10-21

The EARTH makes its daily revolution, runs
its annual course, and century follows century.
Men are born, live and die, and generation
succeeds to generation. Their bodies become
earth again, their names disappear, but the
results of their thought and reason remain rs
heirlooms to the centuries, and each succeeding
generation p%erfeets the thoughts of its prede-
cessor. Thought is immortal. Not of earth,
it yet belongs to earth and works for earth, to
raise humanity above the sphere of ignorance
and savageism. The exposition at Philadelphia
is an epitome of the advance in science and arts
and intellect of not only the last century, but
of the worlds ages Of progress. High above
the nations of the earth float the banners of
America and England as pre-eminent for useful
and labor-saving inventions, that ameliorate the
conditions of life, enhance its comforts and lessen
it's labor and toll, and advance the general
material prosperity. Common labor earns only
a common wage; strength of muscle is but
animal power but when mind and thought
cooperate with strength, proceeds of labor
become valuable. 4 pound of iron dug from
the bowels of the Garth is worth from seven to
eight cents but when changed by intelligent
labor into steel and manufactured into needles,
it yields $4,000. And thus every raw material
is but the stepping-stone laid down by a kind
Providence upon which mind, thought and
enterprise may exercise its powers to reap a
rich reward. a century ago the American
Colonies exported the raw material to the mother
country to-day it is manufactured through the
busy length and breadth of a progressive, pros
porous and wealthy Union.
But two years more, and Hawaii will ceie-
bratc 81 its first century since the discovery by
Cook and what have we to show ut the
Philadelphia Exposition as samples of the pro-
gross of these Islands in thought, the arts or
enterprise-beyond some specimens of sugar,
our staple and almost only article of commerce?
Or shall we boast Of our exhibition of feather
cloaks and leis and calabashes of 4 hundred
years ago, which at least bear witness Of the fact
that the savage of that period did more to
ameliorate his condition, in accordance with his
limited needs, than have those who from other
and civilized countries have here made their
adopted homes. With the most genial climate,
with the most fertile soils, with resources innum-
cradle, a dozen or two sugar plantations are
about all we have 10 show in the line of pro-
gress. and our resources have either dwindled
away with the streams and water powers aud
forests, or have remained in Siatu quo, as they
were, where nature with her own liberal hand
drops the ripe fruit into the open mouth, or
the goat gives its skin and the sheep its wool for
the shearing.
The eighty or ninety thousand dollars worth of
wool exported annually from these islands in the
raw state. realize from four to five times
these amounts, when the enterprising manu-
%tacturer of other countries manipulates it, and
what is still more to be noted, the man who sells
his pound of wool for from eight to fourteen
cents, is quite willing to pay from one to two
dollars Il pound for the wooden goods which he
needs for wear. This is the policy of the
ignorant, the idle and the improvident or in
other words, it is the policy Of Hawaii mel. We
lack 4 Ministry with ideas for the DEVELOPMENT
and fostering of enterprise TO benefit and advance
the country, and so the country remains as it
was, at Il stand still. But no; countries cannot
stand still. If they DO not progress, they recede;
and Hawaii is constantly r~eeeding, in that her
natural resources are with every year becoming
more circumscribcd, until in time her streams
shall have disappeared and her fertile lands have
become barren and unproductive.
Pursuing thus far our somewhat desukory
train of thought, we were made cognizant of o
issued over the signatures of Mr.. Gibson of
Lanai and DE-. Trousseau of Hawaii, inviting q
conference for the organization of a Wool
Growers Association, y to promote the interests
u.s 80