The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1882-10-18
MEETING
OF THE
Planters Labor & Supply
Company.

l were duly read and referred back to the Companl
The Trustees report was adopted unanimously
SO was the Secretarys. The report Of the Treas
urer was adopted, and referred to a committe
consisting of Messrs Bishop, P. C. Jones an
Unna who were to examine vouchers and so forth
The reports of the Secretary and the Trustees wi
be found in our supplement. Captain Mist, a
the request of the Trustees then delivered tHAfo
loving address:
Mn. PREsIDEST AND GESTLE1rES IL have bee
invited to address to you to-day few remarks o.
events in this Kingdom, more particularly refer
ing to those affecting the welfare of our staple in
dustry, the cultivation and manufacturing o
sugar, and how this has been subjected to hin
derances and difficulties in its most tender points
the providing and maintaining sufficient suppl
of suitable labor, unskiled labor more PARTICULAR
when by different course of action the presen
Ministry might have saved money to the publ
purse, and time which is money to the cultivator
and manufacturer.
And here must explain that must base my re
marks on the standpoint of the information anC
experience of an ordinary Englishman. Many o
my countrymen are interested in the industrial
welfare Of these Islands, and l hope to point on
some of the difference between the methods o
Parliamentary Governments as practiced here an(
in Great Britain.
Bat propose TO refer to the position of the
present Ministry in its relation to the Planting in
terests of the Kingdom, little farther of tn,
circumstances of which Occasioned the formation
of the Planters Labor and Supply Comfy the nee
| essities which drew together the Representative
men now in the room, and the able way in which
they have hitherto carried their organization, i
| would be presumption my part to speak, and
find my undertaking rendered the more difficult
by the thoroughly exhaustive manner IN which
hnr-a
been treated by your own officers in reading theil
| respective reports.
Every one here knows the ominous aspect OF
public affairs, the keenly disguised hostility tC
this Company shown by the Ministry, the exposure
of the quibble by which the Premier endeavoreC
TO evade the responsibility of his action relations
TO the offer of this Company, TO send Trustworthy
| and able agent in whom they had full confidence
at their own eIpense-to Japan for the purpose
| of establishing and maintaining a systematic
stream of immigration from that country. AL
this was exposed in the indendent papers at the
time, and has been finally put record BY the in
teresting report you have Just listened to from
| your Secretary Mr.. Z. p. Adams. As to the i'm
beetle mission which has been sent at public ex-
pense to Japan ostensiyly on the same errand, you
| are all of course fully informed.
propose therefore in the first place TO ask your
attention TO the political position of this country
it has taken shape in the course of the present
| reign-in the last three years more particularly.
IL may, and probably will be said that this is not
nor ought to be, in any sense political society,
to this would reply at once. Ii is in some sense
unavoidably so that in any country professedy
governed by free representative institutions, it is
| incompetent for any one to say to any one else,
still less for any one group of persons to say to
any other group, that the management or mis-
management of affairs directly affecting the vel
| fare of every one, who has an interest, material
! or even sentimental in the country be dwells in,
/ and which management constitutes that which we
call politics domestic foreign is not the nalien-
able right of every man or group or company of
/ men.
Indeed were liberty of discussion of public mat
ters by meeting such this even called in
question 1t would only prove that tho questioners
knew not the ABC of free constitutional action.
| Therefore / propose to lay before you some
thoughts the existing rule ON these islands, not
without, hope, due courtesy to the Crown, the
| Ministers and their subordinates whose conduct
may have occasion to call in question. To pass
briefly the series of events which have led from
earliest days of Constitutional form of Government
in this country to the present day. may refer to
the first constitution granted by Kamehameha III,
| who thereby diyested himself of great portion
| of his absolute monarchal rights, and adopted a
system of representative government, with re-
sponsible Ministers something after tine fashions
of older civilizations, tempered of course with a
due regard for many old-fashioned Hawaiian Gus
| toms, privileges and laws which it would have
been obviously unjust and ineIpedient to revolu-
tionze tco suddenly or too thoroughly, many of
which laws especially in regard 10 inheritance in
and the holding of lands, are still in force and
stilution was abrogated by Kamehameha and
the existing one established. With the last breath
of that monarch passed away forever the line of
Kamehameha kings, and with it much of the
old feudal respect for the royal and other noble
native families. At the death of Lunalilo the last
of the great Chiefs with any sort of hereditary
claim was gone, and it became necessary, in ac-
cordance with the provisions of the Constitution
to seek another family to be invested with royal
ptsition and which should constitute new stem
or root whence future rulers should be drawn
The present royal family was selected, and its
head David halakaua was made King not without
serious misgivlngs amongst large proportion of
the natives which eliminated in riot in this city
only quieted by the interposition of American and
British National forces which were fortunately at
hand and responded to the call of their respective
Commissioners. Order being restored and the
King fully in possession of the Royal rights and
functions; nothing need be mentioned here until
the arrival of acosmOpolitan adventurer of italian
origin named Moreno. 1t seems TO have occurred
to this man or to Mr.. Gibson about the same time
that the almost pure manhood suffrage grant
ed by the Constitution was the most available
means of establishing something close akin to
absolute monarchy, or at most an oligarchy
which should rule ostensibly through machinery of
Constitutional government without any reference to
education, intelligence or business or govern
mental capacity provided they centred IN numer-
ica minority. Shortly before this the long sought
for Reciprocity Treaty had been signed, capital
was attracted, industry advanced with bound,
revenue rose rapidly, and every prospect was favor
able, Wnen pubic opinion was aroused by the
sudden dismissal without assigned reason OF the
existing Ministry, this at time when no great
question was before the public, and no ground for
such action, justifable by any parliamentary pre-
cedent was known to exist. Again later on another
Ministry shared a similar fate, this time in the
face of all Constitutional practice, inasmuch as
the dismissed Ministry had but few days before,
met and defeated in the Legislature a direct vote
of want of confidence, in other words had inst
been assured by the Mobiles and Representatives
in Legislative Session, that they had the confidence
of the constituencies of the country here was a
complete breach with the fundamental laws of
Parliamentary governments. | shall have fire.
quently to refer to parliamentary government as
practised in Great Britain partly because it ap.
pears to be the most apt parallel, and partly be-
cause it is the only system with which can claim
even very moderate acquaintance. In England
the fall of Ministry can be generally anticipated
for some time beforehand, and the question which
decides its fate is generally one which public
attention has been fixed and public discussion
aroused. waning majority i'll the House of
Parliament, a waning popularity and confidence
out of doors usually precedes the resignation of
a Ministry. frequently indeed the leader of the
Ministerial.pa in the House of Commons an
nounces that when the debate on a certain ques-
tion comes to be voted on the Ministry will accept
an adverse vote as a command TO resign while OH
the other hand should the Ministry be upheld by
sound working maiority" their position will be
of necessity stronger than before. Rarely is the
question of want of confidence brought to the |
vote, and never think / may confidently say, at
least since the resolution OF 1913, never has a |
Ministry been dismissed by the Grown so immedi- |
aely after receiving the highest mark of approval
that can be conferred by the Legislature, viz, |
defeating a vote of want of confidence.
In the dismissal, for 1t would be idle to talk of |
The resignation of Mr.. Wilder's Ministry, which |
was accomplished almost Immediately after the |
prorogation of the Legislative Session of 1880, |
Ministry was amended by the Crown for again it /
is a misnomer TO say-called into power by the
Legislature, of whom the head and front, the be-
ginning and the end, was the alien Moreno, whose \
political status debarred him by the provisions of
he Constitution from seat in the House of
though not from a seat in the
Cabinet.
Mr.. Moreno being installed as practical fastofHBi
lnder the Crown, the other Cabinet portfolios we're
assigned to men who were either desirous of up
holding Autocratic rule, or incompetent TO oppose
i. Accordingly we find Mr.. Kuea, the minister to
native congregation intruded Minister of
Finance man utterly ignorant of financial
Mr.. Bush as Minister of Interior,
md w. c. Jones as Attorney General. And now
he game was to be tried on. Mr.. Bush immedi-
tely hired Mr.. Gibson, by deed dated Ang. %,
sting Ministry. To Mr.. Gibson was also granted
contract for the supply OF sheep from Lanai for
he use of the Deper Establishment on Molokai.
mother friend was to be paid handsome salary
hat he might go to California TO purchase ma
erialsn for the Government with a handsome
ercentage allowance on all purchases he might
nake, nature of materials or need for them MOI
pecihed The proverbial beggar, in the person of
iorenO, now seemed to be fairly on horseback,
ut his very greedineSs hastened his arrival at the
roverbial goal. One of the first acts of the No
emo Ministry was, in order to sweep away any pos
Ible distinctions from their path, to demand she
seal by their respective Governments of the three
,esident Commissioners. This was too serious a
tep to be so lightly undertaken and the repressn-
atoms of the gentlemen who had been so grossly
4enAg