The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1881-05-07

Though the public interest IN the case oi
the Chinese passengers lately detained on
the reef by a stretch of authority on the
mart of the Board of immigration has sub
sided. the lengthy opinions of our Supreme
Court Judges on the subject which we pub
Iish to-day will be scanned with care by
many who do not believe in the prudence,
and still take leave to doubt the legality,
of these high handed proceedings, even
though they find them backed up by
the highest legal functionaries in the land.
It is to be regretted that there is less of the
judicial tone than of hat of the special
pleader in these utterances from the Bench.
So far as the public is concerned they will be
deemed highly unsatisfactory, because
whilst they deal at length with any and
every other aspect of the matter as put before
them by Counsel in three separate cases,
the few simple points which present them
selves forcibly to the minds of laymen are
slurred over altogether. That perversion of
language by which men who have been
anded within his territory and lived here
for weeks-the ship that brought them
being in the mean time allowed to enter
and clear at our Custom House and leave
the port-are said to be still outside the
Kingdom, needs some higher sanction than
the dictum of a Board of Immigration back
ed by a similar dictum, unsupported by
argument on the part of even our much
respected Bench of Judges, to make it pass
current as good, common-sense English.
This point is one which weighs most in the
popular mind but the Judges pass it over
in the ARREST hammer as not worth discussing.
Then again the question whether these men
| v-ara \, prieona1 Or not iG one which the nul-
lie make much of and the Judges assume to
dispose of in a few dogmatic lines. Had the
ships they came in been detained, with the
understanding that all their passengers were
liable 20 be put back on board of them at
any IN should they not comply with
such regulations as might be imposed upon
them, the ordinary mind, though unframed
in legal subtleties might nevertheless have
cOmprehended a difference between an I'm
prisonment ashore and a prohibition against
permanent landing. But the Government
did not go about things in that way. 1t
took possession of the passengers and let
those who had brought them, and their ships,
go. What would they nave done with
them, if, say, a few hundre, 5 had persistent
Iy declined TO make labor engagements until
they were liberated I? Will any one venture
to say that the Government could in such
case have held to the ridiculous assumption
that the men had not been admitted into
the country. No possible method of deal
ing with such a difficulty presents itself in
which that fiction could nave been kept up.
1t is to be regretted that their Honors did not
give more of their attention to these points
than to some of those which they discuss at
length. They have spent much time in en-
d~eavouring to show that it is desirable that
the Board of immigration should be in a
position to do as they have done in such
cases as those in question, but they have
not made it appear that it is legal. Work
ing men of every nationality are interested
in the question whether friends and fellow
couBtrymen of their own, may not find
themselves in the same position as the pas
sengers per Septima. And the point they
look at with the most apprehension is that
the employers of labor hold the reigns of
Government and can if so disposed use such
Ordinances as that under which the
Septima's passengers were detained on the
reef, as a means of coercing those whose SER
vices they wish to engage. And ifthe popu
lace (of all natiOnalities) remain convinced
that such Treatments as the Septima's pas
sengers received is illegal (however expe-
dent high judicial authorities may nave
shown it to be, from an employers point OF
view who knows what disturbance there
may not be should the Board of Immigra-
ton attempt to repeat it hereafter.
In connection with this subject it is OF
interest to note that Mr.. Hartwell in his
present opinion fully maintains the posi-
ton he took, when on the Bench, in the
Glensannox habeas corpus case.