The Hawaiian gazette., 1886-12-07
what Our NeighbOrs Say of Us.

enjoyed over it.
What Our NeighbOrs Say OF Us.
From the Weekly Herald of Trade. Nov. H.
"The present condition of the Island Treas
ury is about as follows: Some $50 900 de-
posits in the postal savings banks, has all
been spent, also between $4,000 and $780,
900 moneys credited on Japanese emigrants,
subject TO call at any time by the japanese
Government. The local banking house OF
G. Z. Bishop d Co., hold $4,000 of overdue
bonds on which the Government refuses to
pay either interest or principal on account
of inability. The banking house of w. G..
Irwin d Co., in which Claus Spreckels of San
Francisco is partner advanced the Govern
ment, with interest accrued to date, about
$l50,O00 on open account secured by the per-
sonal notes of a Cabinet that went out of
power few weeks ago, and the Government
not only refuses to pay this advance but a
scheming native lawyer, who has been made
Attorney General, has given an opinion that
the money cannot be collected by law, or in
other words that it is optional with the Gov
eminent to pay back the money it borrowed
or not. Probably we could figure upanother
S250,000 of overdue accounts which the Gov
eminent owes"
"Mr. Spreckels has been offered any por-
ton of the bonds which are to be sold in
London at 9S, at SO, and as business propo-
sition has refused to Invest dollar in them.
Mr.. Spreckels. who happened to be in the
Islands at the time, when he saw the insane
and ruinous course that Kalakaua and his
Ministers were entering upon, publicly offered
his bonds of a former issue, of which he held
$4,000, bearing six per cent, free from taxa
ton for sale at ninety, preferring to make
that sacrifice than risk much greater loss,
but found no takers"
From the Alta California, Nov. III
The civilized world has long taken great
interest in Hawaii. The relation between
that Kingdom and the United States has long
been of great international Importance. The
increase In commerce was not the only rea-
son for our promotion of civilization there,
for the island Kingdom is our nearest Pacific
nei9hbor, and must look to Us for shelter,
while, frankly, Its position is of the greatest
Importance to our interest IL the whole Pa
ciic trade.
The Government OF Hawaii has been kept
in the hands of the native race, and there
has grown up a belief that the superior
classes of that race were quite safely counted
on the side of civilization. Recent events in
the islands disturb this belief and give rise
to the fear that there is a movement toward
atavism, to the recurrence of a former type,
a return to the superstitions of the old race,
which endangers the civilized interests that
have been planted there. Late files of Homo
MES, incantations and invocations, which
carry one back to the time OF Kamehameha.
Our private correspondence from that city
fill out what the papers have left unsaid.
1t is alleged that the Government deter
mined to put none but Hawaiians on guard.
dream was dreamed in the palace and the
hdhHIdS, or official soothsayers, were called
in to interpret it. They made lamentations,
and interpreted the dream to mean that the
sway of the hdoie, or foreigner, was pan l01,
finished, but to make its close effective there
must be Precipitation of the dieties by burial
and resurrection of the Hawaiian flag with
the bones of one of the old chiefs.
This ceremony was carried out on the night
selected for it. There was a rattle of drums
on Nuuanu avenue and file of armed men
escorting state carriage to the cemetery.
There the Royal Mausoleum was opened and
the flag was wrapped around the bones of
long dead ruler and with them re-enclosed
and inferred in a speedily prepared grave,
from which, after time, it was resurrected,
when the procession returned, keeping high
step to lively music.
The significance of all this is that the pre-
sent laws of the Kingdom canonize against
this sort of thing, and the last occurrences
of the old rites were more than thirty years
ago. But the white inhabitants of the King
dom say: "If the influence of the HaoIe is
also y"
1t is said that now oracles are consulted III
the secret society, the kii0k;iiO, and there is
prospect that the veueering of civilization
upon the Government will crack and entirely
peel of.
To do complete justice to the native race,
however, 1t Is necessary to refer to our prI-
vate correspondence, in which the statement
is made that these proceedings were insti-
gated bv white man, Mr.. Gibson, who has
been adopted as the Kings father 50 as to
take him out of the list of haoIeS. He is, We
believe, Englishman and first visited
Hawaii as a Mormon missionary, commits
stoned by Brigham Young to convert the
people and prepare there q city of refuge for
Zion when Utah became too hot to hold
polygamy. Gibson abandoned that plan and
easily sloughed his Mormon faith to become
an insular statesman.
There is abundant material for reflection
in the fact that the Legislature has recently
recognized the Office of the kulRnas and the
placing of a large loan in London. 1t goes
without saying that no legitimate loan can
be placed on the basis of a Government of
fortune-tellers and sOOthsaFers, and If placed
at all it Will be for the same p1rpOse as that
which would underlie a loan made to the
King of Uganda, as the basis of ultimate,
forcible absorption of the Kingdom given il
security.
In some quarters it is whispered. too, that
the scheme is revival of the old Mormon
plan, conceived III the mighty brain of Brig
ham Young, and that affairs ii Utah are at
such ? pressure IS to make so bold a push
desirable. Whatever the plan may be. this
country should carefully follow events in
Honolulu, for II is not to our interest that
anyone should slip into domination of those
islands on the back of a bad debt, nor by
the hoodooing of kaAHHas.