The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1886-04-21
WHAT TO DO ABOUT 1T.

sons who strolled yesterday through
the burnt district was large poster
stuck on telephone posts-what was
left of them-and other conspicuous
positions, announcing the perma-
nent repairing or the re-erection of
wooden buildings in the burnt dis
trict to be strictly prohibited, and
also that no buildings except those
Of stone, brick, iron or other fire.
proof material will be permitted
further, that surveys are in progress,
the results of which will be pub
lished as soon as practicable. The
document is signed by the Minister
of the Interior. Twelve feet from
one of the notices referred to, and
in full view of it, the first new
fabric, after the fire, was in an adj
vanced stage of construction, the
square frame being up and one side
board in. This will, of course,
produce collision between the pro-
prietor of the new structure, which
is not large one, being only II by
16 feet or thereabout, and the Gov
ernment. The question of the juris-
J;ot;op nf tbo M;n;otor ~ fba Tn
terror will probably require a de-
cision of the Supreme Court to
settle. Should it be decided that
the Minister has power to prevent
private property owners from build
ing what they please, when they
please, and how they please, on
their own lots, the result will in
volve considerable hardship to many
who are naturally anxious to get
back under their own roofs as
soon as possible. But on the other
hand, providing the Minister'S pro-
clamation is ruled ultra vires, or
illegal, the inevitable result will be
the speedy re-erection of a con-
glomeration of shanties of more
heterogeneous class than those
wiped off the page of Hawaiian
architecture on Sunday evening.
Not only will the gingerbread archi-
lecture of Maunakea, Meek and
King streets spring, Sphinx-like,
from its ashes, but the probabilities
are that buildings which might have
been tolerable, had it not been for
their surroundings, will be quite
conspicuous for their absence, as no
owner of a building of any preten-
sions will think of rebuilding in the
middle of new forest of tiretraps.
The costly lesson of the goth may
then, of course, be set down as
necessary for rehearsal at some
future day.
The opportunity has come, and,
though it has come unsought, it is
none the less indispensable that it
be improved. The substitution of a
respectable city with ample thor
oughfares and decent streets for
miserable tunnels and alleyways is
the plain duty of the day, and moth
ing but stupidity and wretched mar
row-mindedness will ignore its
claims. That the Chinese have been
permitted in the past to crowd to-
gether, as the event has proved, fol-
their own ruin, renders it all the
more imperative upon the public tc
prevent their doing so again. All
persons who are unable to see be.
yond the limit of their own present
and petty personal interests will
doubtless be ready to offer every
possible resistance to the interposi-
ton of either the Government OF
their fellow-citizens on behalf of the
permanent stability and safety OF
Honolulu, the only mid-ocean city
of the Western Hemisphere. II
was always source of qualification
to residents who had any respect
for themselves or their surround
ings, that the wretched jumbles OF
architecture which are now repre-
sented by blackened ruins, were
outside of the usual lines of obser-
yation Of transient visitors. Pas