The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-01-08

OUR SOVEREIGN, on his accession to the throne,
periodically announced the watch-word of his
reign to be, HooULU LAHUI-increase the people
and it has been re-echoed by the people every
where. But we look in vain for any tangible proof
that with the muses. generally it is anything more
than an empty sounda Morality, industry and
thrift, those great conseryators of a nations
vitality, are among the Hawaiians apparently no
more regarded to-day than in the years that are
past Among the young men just coming upon
the stage of life, it can be said with truth that
there are more idle and dissolute ones in proper
ton to the population than in times past. In
creased civil liberty too often has come to mean
only increased license. With a growing taste
for the necessities and tluxuries of civilized life,
we see a growing disinclination to labor for the
means of gratifying that taste. Our young men
are to a very large extent becoming mere con-
sumers who produce nothing. Start a company
of volunteer soldiery, by belonging to which they
may escape the payment of taxes, and at once n
lively interest is aroused but to learn q trade or
to persistently and patiently follow some other
industrial pursuit, they are not generally to be
relied upon. Whittier is this condition of things
tending?
At the last session of the ' Social Science
Congress- Mr.. David \. Wells presented q
paper, prepared with great care, in which he
showed that the entire surplus wealth of the
United States would be consumed in four and q
half years if the whole country were to cease
production during that period, and if consump-
ton were to continue at a like rate to the present.
In other words, nearly one fourth of the entire
wealth of that country is annually produced by
the labor of her citizens, aud from ninety-five to
ninety-seyen per cent. of this amount is annually
required TO keep the country from decreasing in
wealth and consuming it's previous accumula-
tions. These things are demonstrated to be as
true as the multiplication table.
1t follows as an inevitable deduction from these
facts, that n partial state of idleness will reduce
a people to q proportionate condition of poverty.
4 further deduction is that those individuals
who have the least accumulated surplus, will,
if they remain idle, be reduced to complete pau
perism at a period when the weather. individu-
ais though somewhat reduced in wealth, would
still have a large surplus on hand and if in
dustry and the consequent creation of new wealth
were then TO be resumed, the wealthy class by
virtue of their possession of the money and avail
able goods would absorb all the property of the
nation. Once having all the property of the
country and the lever of ground rent and interest
in their hands, it would not be difficult for them
to retain Il permanent ascendancy over the i'm
poverished class. Considerations like these, it
occurs to us, might be reproduced with propriety
in the native papers of this city.
As things are now going with this people, I'M
less there is a speedy change for the better
whereby the decrease of the native race (conse-
quent upon their habits of life) can be stayed by
some counteracting influence from without, the
years may be pretty accurately figured when the
aboriginal Hawaiians will number but 4 mere
handful. 1t is worse than useless to disguise
this truth.
\ great deal has been said and written during
the past few years of the Importance and necessity
of immigration from other lands in order to re-
cuperate the nation. Beyond the e~xpedient of
bringing hither from time to time n few Chinese
as q temporary relief for the urgent necessities of
some of the sugar plantations, (Which indeed, it
is.important should be s~upplied) government has
neither initiated nor proposed any scheme looking
to a supply of the needed population, and so we
continue to drift. For it is not only plantation
hands that we require, but men and women as
actual settlers to build up the nation Writers
for the press have discussed the immigration
topic, and various have been the suggestions
made. To our apprehension the wisest and most
feasible policy that has been advocated, is the
sending of a government Commissioner to England
for the purpose of negotiating with the Imperial
Government for permission to obtain a supply of
hill coolies from India. They are a cognate race
with ours, wO!fd readily assimilate, and their
tractable natures and Flooding habits of industry
renderahem very desirable immigrants.
But this brings us to another consideration,
and an important one. Aside from thus obtain