The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1886-07-29
THURSDAY. JULY 30, 1856.
A POLICY WANTED.


Government had policy. To-day |
we go still farther and assert that
the great disability from which this
country has suffered for many years,
if not from the time of its COM
mencement as a country with civil
lied polity, is lack of government
with clearly defined, intelligent,
comprehensive, progressive policy.
Affairs, for the most part, have been
allowed to drift like ship without q
rudder, and having a captain ignor-
ant of the principles of navigation,
with occasional spurts in different
directions, under full sail, that have
indicated neither intelligent design
nor comprehensive realization of
the country's needs, capabilities,
and possible future, and that no
man with experience of the world
and the science of government
would for n moment consider
worthy of the dignity of being
called craftsmanship. The fact is,
government in these islands has
been too much of a family concern,
and the national business has been
too much in the hands of indivi-
duals whose associations and educa-
ton exclude the possibility of
separating the sophistry of private
emolument from the philosophy of
public interests, and whose minds
are too narrow to comprehend those
broad principles which include an
equality of rights. Change of min
istry has generally meant slight
disturbance of the snug little family
arrangement, which has eventually
settled down to the same old level
in a slightly altered form. A few
independent spirits who viewed the
situation from a standpoint outside
of the family circle, had hopes that
the changes of four years ago,
which brought the present Prime
Minister into power, signitied the
Inauguration of a policy that would
finally revolutionize the old state of
things for the better, demolish
cliques and factions, establish the
civil and political service of the
nation on the broad and liberal basis
of the "greatest good to the great
est number" and be marked in
every line and paragraph by a mag
nanimity and craftsmanship that
would compel the respect and ad-
miration of men of sense and reason.
These hopes were mainly created
by little weekly paper, named the
NuhOu, which existed some years
prior to that period, and was sup
posed to express the views of the
gentleman just now referred to,
then in opposition. These hopes
have been disappointed, and here
we are, at the expiration of four
years, in the same hazy, undefina-
BILE condition, with an unsatsfac-
tory past, an uncertain present, and
a future shrouded in mystery. The
determined opposition, combined
with the narrowness of the majority
in the two previous Legislatures,
may be allowed as palliation of
some defects of the past; but the
last election having secured large
majority, it was reasonable to ex-
pect that the present Legislature
would have been confronted with q
policy at the commencement of the
session. But no policy was forth
coming. Since then a change has
occurred in the Cabinet, three OF
the four portfolios being held by
three new men, with the same heac
as the previous combination. Sew
eral weeks have passed. A few
people who have lived long in th'
country-some of them born in it
and are familiar with its physica
peculiarities, its resources, its capa
bilities, its people, its condition
with carefully framed and definite
ideas of its requirements, have
looked anxiously for the develop
ment of a policy--a policy adapted
to the peculiar conditions and needs
of an insular kingdom and a mixee