The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-11-05
HARD TIMES AND WHY.

One of the problems of this age is
hard times, and how to remove
their causes. As usual, in the solu-
tion of such questions, popular ex-
plantations are wide of the mark.
Instead of calculating the real
causes of financial difficulties and
adopting common sense methods for
their removal. most persons only
mystify matters, making confusion
worse confounded, and thereupon
proceed to dose themselves with
such quack remedies as nihilism and
communism, until they sink down to
the lowest strata of society, where
they find the cure to be worse than
the disease. Low wages for work.
men and high dividends for capital
are often cited as the root and ori-
gin of hard times, but this theory
seldom stands the test of investiga-
ton. Poor harvests, fruitless min
ing, scourges by caterpillars, locusts
or any other calamity cutting off the
sources of subsistence, are always
followed by hard times and much
real destitution. But here is just
where the inexplicable difficulties of
the question, to those who think hard
times due to natural causes, are
met. If hard times are due to the
supplies of nature being temporarily
cut off, .how comes it that there is
no diminution in the cry of advers-
ity when the products of sea and
land-field, mine and forest-are
spread around in the most profuse
abundance? 1t would almost seem
to be fact in modern society that
the greater the provision nature
makes for the wants of man, the
more clamorous do these wants be-
come. One want is supplied only
to suggest some fresh demands, and
so the process goes on, until the
problem of keeping pace with them,
like the algebraist's infinite series,
becomes insoluble. And when the
fact dawns upon us that the sources
Of the material universe are not
sufficient to meet every want of life,
real and imaginary, then arises the
din of many voices shouting 4" hard
times.''
To ascertain what really is the
matter, it is necessary to get down
to the bedrock of honest fact, where
we find that "hard times,'' instead
of being the effect of adverse Cir
cumstances, is really the cause OF
imaginary difficulties. 1t is, besides,
misnomer. What is usually de-
signated hard times would, for the
most part, be appropriately and
truly named extravaganza, -
recklessness, or criminal i'm
providence" Income is limited,
but the wild wants of the recipient
know no bounds and are under nc
control. Probably the majority OF
the inhabitants Of Honolulu are ir
receipt of incomes amply sufficient
for all reasonable purposes, while
the probabilities are equally strong
that the same persons are no bette
off at the end of the year than a
the beginning. Instances are know
of persons in receipt of larg
salaries, "going it +" in such will
fashion as to land them in bank
ruptcy, when, if little commo
sense had characterized their styl
of living, they might have accumu
lated surpluses sufficient, in fe'
years, to secure them an honorabl
independence. Where "hard times
slay their victims by thousands
high" and fast" living sla
theirs by ten thousands. Horse
and saloons take the places of home
in the disbursements of many o
whom fortunes favors have falle
more in the form of cash than G
brains, and when the cash fountain