The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-06-10
HOOULU LAHUI.

H0OULU LAHUI.
There is perhaps no subject which should
engage the attention and command the exertions
of the statesmen and others who profess a regard
for the Hawaiian race, that that which forms
the caption above. Not merely that it was the
utterance of our sovereign from his throne but
that it expresses in reality the actual need under
which the country is labOring of that first of all
national requirements, population. As if be-
levers in predestination, in all the schemes we
have heretofore set on foot ostensibly for this
end, we have heard nothing of means to prevent
the progress of decay in the Hawaiian himself as
an individual. We have built him churches
and sent him to school but neither schools nor
churches have stopped his decay-are we then
so ignorant as to say that as a consequence, he
has an evil genius or is cursed? The expression
has been frequently uttered that the race is
doomed; and yet such an expression is meaning
less unless the terms of our proposition are more
fully given. We do not doubt but that, with all
the evil influences at present at work, and still
unstayed that without effort at melioration
excepting by the influence of religion and
morality, the condition of the Hawaiian people
will go on from bad to worse to finally eliminate
in the fulflment of this frequently reiterated
prophecy. But there are reasons, and cogent
ones too, why if a policy dictated by enlighten-
ment and medical science broad enough in it's
cast to comprehend the race, much good may be
done, if not an actual stay be put to the decrease
in number. The introduction of a cognate race
for the purpose of am~algamation with the
Hawaiians, is in itself, an idea worthy of great
consideration, especially from a physiological
point of view, if the race to be introduced are
not more degenerated from the effects of disease,
than the people with whom they are to ANAL
gamate-otherwise no good would result from
such an intermixing. But in all probability,
whatever race we introduce will be neither more
intelligent, educated, or physically able, than are
the Hawaiians; and one and all in such a case,
would be subject to the same depressing
influences as are now telling with such fearful
effect among this people. While each fresh
importation would, in this event, mean a tenn
porary addition in numbers, the decrease in
ratio would probably remain the same, and the
great expense Cat this rate) of continual fresh
importations, would be very heavily felt by the
nation at large.
Now there is but one way by which the
contact of civilization with races still primitive
in their ideas and habits of life, has been
prevented from working a decrease in the
numbers of the aboriginal population, and that
is by raising them to the same standard of
intelligence with those of the intruding party.
By the correct arrangement of specialties seen
to be most needed, the effect in this direction of
course must be materially enhanced and it is
therefore that we look to an education in
medicine and the general laws of health, widely
promulgated among this people, as the one all
important subject still to be taught them. Let
the general laws of nature be taught them, and
they will cease to cling to the superstitions
which aFe now making them one and all the
dupes of charlatans and thieves. They will then
like the white man, whose race is everywhere
increasing, seek for intelligent aid at all times
and it would certainly not be inconsistent with
reason to suppose they would under like circum-
stances, reap like benefits.
1t is useless, nay even sinful, to attempt to
hide the fact that the decline in the numbers of
this race is owing almost solely to one cause,
namely: Syphilis. Any intelligent person knows
that neither religion nor good morals will ever
eradicate this from a people where once it has
taken firm root. eve say nothing of those who
are obstinately visionary in holding that
this disease is but the just punishment of indiVi-
dual transgression, and that to NEEDLE with 1T is
hut to interfere with fore-ordination). If such
would inquire, science would tell them, that the
~ecrofula or phthysis perchance at their own fire.
sides, was IN all probability only the syphilis of
their parents or grand parents or more remote
ancestry, and if such would exercise their
common sense, they would be taught that,
although originally the effects of sin, the most
innocent are liable to suffer, and that knowledge
only of its nature, united to efforts at its
suppression, are the things most needed to secure
Immunity from a disease that makes no
distinctions as to innocence or guilt, and to-day
is yietimizing alike the most beautiful and unsus-
Meeting of Gods creatures, as well as those who
have "strayed away from their path like lost
sheep"
1t is estimated by good authority that perhaps
one in every thirty of the entire population OF
the globe are more or Less by 1t;
and vet, even in the most civilized countries the
greatest Ignorance prevails among people regard
inc the nature of this disease-the virtuous
looking upon it as the direct wages Of SIM with
out knowing of the legacy stored up for innocent
offspring ,and the dissolute, as a simple masady
to be cured of hand by the recipes of friends
or the postrums of the guack.
If then, such ignorance prevails upon SO