The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1881-02-12

an elJSlum lot the SyDarlte-lt Is a harvest
land for the enterprising-it will become the
chief theatre of commercial activity, and the
chief source of commercial wealth. 1t now
sends forth two hundred millions Of dollars
worth OF valuable products that promote the
industry OF other lands-it will send forth a
thousand millions of dollars worth. 1t now
sustalns thirty millions of souls-and it can
iced the world and yet what is it in the
civilized worlds eye? An unnoticed space
OF spice lands and pirates. All attention
has been fixed upon China, Hindustan and
Japan, contributing nothing that truly en-
riches us, or that is of interest to our civili-
zatIon and next to these, Christendom has
been engrossed by Polynesia-a host of
lslets-perhaps twenty thousand, sounding
large IN number, but a poor and barren
aggregate. Not all the area of these twenty
thousand is equal to the half of one of
Malaysia-to the half of the island of
Sumatra nor does all Polynesia's poi and
Pandanus eating population equal the quar-
ter of the souls of Sumatra. And yet what
Is Sumatra to the public mind of Christen-
dom Journals and tracts and reports have
engrossed the religious world with the bar
rem reefs and craters of the Pacific. Micro
nesia Is better known than Malaysia and
yet what Is Micronesia ? Look on the map,
and observe that they cannot make dots
small enough to truly represent its islets.
but Malaysia and Its seas would almostcover
North America. The space between Homo
lulu and San Francisco is only about half
the length Of Malaysia. You can sail four
thousand miles, and behold islands all the
time on your starboard and your larboard-
grand and beautiful islands, towering loftily,
clothed from peak to beach with verdure and
foliage redolent with aromas, brilliant with
blossom, weighty with fruit. sparkling with
the plumage of swarming ~songsters, alive
with the cry of animated nature of all kinds,
and the outrageous home of millions of
interesting, industrious, teacheable humanity.
This is a panorama worth looking at there
Is not the like anywhere else. This is a re-
gion above all others. | like to repeat, above
all others to invite those whose sympathies
or enterprises GO forth throughout the earth
IN quest of a people and an arena that
challenge their souls highest need of love,
OF faith. OF labour, and of enterprise. | do
not seek-I know that with the truthful l
will not be understood as seeking-to dis
parage the faith and labor that has been put
forth in the Pacific. But if that has called
forth and deserves so much, what, when
further known. may we not expect from
Malaysia? Her people do not die with the
coming of the white man, but rather increase
In his presence. It is indeed true that the
Dutch found the Javanese about two millions.
and now they number over eleven millions.
1t is not supposed that there was one
million of souls in the Philippines when the
Spaniards first came, and now the lowest esti-
mate Is ive millions And yet the association
Of Dutch and Spaniards with Malaysians was
prompted neither by philanthropy nor evan
pelical zeal. Their intercourse has not been
fraternal, and their dominance ANYTHING but
paternal. They have driven the people to
raise coffee and hemp. as Americans have
driven Africans TO raise cotton but still. in
all these instances, the races have bred and
fattened. and .- = 10 s-a-ut.p
families and "a boar ...g. ..#. such as the r
kind know no. elsewEer. i,ss is esa--fa'ry
true of Ma T'.- Sr-1isf I've
given their la-g44.. 90 ll~1- and "a half mi-
lions of Tapai40s. Bl-avarz and others.
totally abrog ing their native tongue. I'D
vet they flourish. The soe!eioa o. me
Dutch doubles the population of Java in
forty years. have some occasion to object
to the spirit of the Dutch monopoly and nom
intercourse, but ] cannot doubt the value of
their policy in some respects in fostering
MaIaysian increase. And, inasmuch as the
replenishing of the earth was the primal COM
mand, il does seem that some OF the same
kind of policy. with certain ameliorations,
might be applied advantsgeously to the
material development Of land and races in
the Paciic-for instance, Hawaii nei. |
have said IT again and again, and repeat 1t
now, that civilization in Oceanica, house
and home civilization, bread and meat civili-
%zatiOn, the civilization of good clothing,
decency and cleanliness. the civilization of
prosperity on earth, as well as hope of heaven
is to be best developed in the production OF
needed staples for the worlds use, rather
than in a loaing life on barren, coral reefs,
and ekIng out a low grade, vegetating life
on poi and pandanus. The Polyneslans are
dying out on such diet, and wasting away
.also-owing to some civilized virus in their
blood, and the lack of all national hope in
their hearts bat the Malaysians are i~ncreas-
ing on rice, sage and plentiful meat and
fruit, which increase is also owing greatly
to organized labor in plantations and mines,