The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-09-11
T II Z
THE LEGISLATURE.


worked fairly well, and made some pro-
gress towards winding up the business
of the session. The Select Committee
on Elections presented a report and sub
stitute bill for the two bills referred to it,
or rather three members of the com
mittee did so, and three members pre-
scented another report. The House
ordered that both reports should be con-
sidered with the bills when they came
up. This appears to be the only prudent
course to take, the divergence of opinion
in committee being upon material points.
The Legislature should be very careful
in its consideration of a bill OF this scope
and character, and should not lose sight
of the common veal for any mere poiiti-
cal end or aim.
This bill, we think, should limit the
choice OF members to residents of each
electoral district, and should not admit
OF strangers, or residents in other dis
tricts, contesting the seats. This I'M
doubtedly would limit the choice, but it
would ensure greater efficiency in the
representatives, whose local knowledge
would be invaluable 1t is in the line
of the American system; it is also in the
line of policy embodied in the bill con-
sidered yesterday, which substitutes
local for Government control in the eX-
penditure of the road tax; and there
fore we may safely count upon the votes
of Messrs. Brown, Castle, Dole and
Thurston, who championed that meas
ure, in support of an elective principle so
obvi ously in accord with their own
views.
And this brings us to consideration of
the bill in question, and to a reiteration
it is a mistake. As first proposed it in
troduced a radical change in the system
of control and responsibility for the Gus
tody and expenditure of public money.
1t was taken up as an Opposition meas
ure, and in order to deplete the Treasury
the gentlemen who engineered it were
prepared to hand over $3O0,O00 in round
figures. raised by taxation, to the chances
of accident and peculation. The plea
of getting better roads for the money was
a mere pretense. The districts got all
the road tax and great deal more eX-
pended during the last biennial period,
but the late Minister of the Interior drew
against specific appropriations and did
not exhaust, as he might have done, the
road tax. 1t is simple question of
bookkeeping, therefore, and not of with
holding the road tax from the districts
which, under the present Appropriation
bill, will have it returned almost two
fold.
We do not object to this, however;
what we do object to is the provision in
the bill, that money should be raised by
taxation, and that the funds so acquired
should be placed in irresponsible
hands without direct control of the
Treasury. Suppose the road tax,
amounting in the aggregate to $780,
900, be stolen from its custodi-
ans suppose their houses are burned
to be done about the roads and bridges,
and who is to be responsible? VIII
gentlemen come up from rural districts
next session and demand an apprOpria-
ton for the unexpended balance of the
road tax? Ii they were to do so they
would not be likely to get it; but ii they
CHANGED to succeed the country would
have to submit to an increase of taxa
ton. This is the outlook which is just
now before the taxpayers of the King
dom, and it is an outlook forced upon
them from the Opposition standpoint
and policy.
But it is contended that the Minister
o; the Interior will have the appoint
ment of the Chairman of the local Road
Inspectors, and that he may be trusted
t. appoint honest men. This is another
SHUTTLE. The Minister of the Interior
a 1points the Road SUPERINTENDENT
Chief under the present system, yet the
Dads are in a shocking state on Hawaii
and Maui, according to concurrent testi-
mony. What better choice will be made
1der the proposed system, let us ask,
by the Minister of the Interior, for it has
been demonstrated in the Legislature
that it is not a question OF money, see
ing that more than the full amount of
the road tax OF the last biennial period
was expended in the various districts.
The appointing power therefore does not
help matters. There is an absence of
and control, which is fatal
to the principle of local self-goyernment
underlying the bill, and which principle
we cordially indorse.
The Minister of Finance, MIR. Kanoa,
replied to Mr. Dole's question as to the
quantity of wine and spirituous liquors
withdrawn from the Custom House
without paying duty, in very dignitied
and proper way. The only spirits or
wine Withdrawn without paying duty
was for the household of His Majesty
and for members of the Diplomatic
Corps, who are entitled to this privilege, /
and a due sense of respect and delicacy
forbade a public statement of their re-
auirements. Indeed, the inquiry was
...,,o,Dr,. ono 70 mako a. Mr. Dole /