The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1891-12-12

ing it, are unintentionally faithless,
the people can turn them out and
appoint others. This is the extent
of it's power.
Now if is obvious that
this control by the people
can be exercised in several
ways. The people can elect the
heads of government and leave
them to appoint their subordinates,
in which case the heads of govern
ment are responsible for their APP
pointees Or the people can elect the
subordinates as well, in which case
these latter are independent of
their superiors and responsible di-
rectly to the people. As a third
alternative the people can content
itself with eIecting the legislature
and controlling the government
through that body. In that case
the Legislature is the repository of
the popular will, and to it the ex-
ecutive is answerable for it's acts.
Now if we reflect a moment it
will be easy to see that one cannot
say in advance which one of these
methods is the most likely to carry
out the popular will. An illustra-
tration will make this simple
enough. Smith, let US suppose, is
the owner of large shoe factory.
He puts Brown, who Is an old hand
at the business, in charge. Now
will Smith appoint all the
employees of the factory
himself, or will he leave all that
to Brown? Plainly enough, he
will leave it all to Brown. Yet
does he lose control of the factory
thereby? Does he not, on the con-
trary, by controlling Brown con-
troll every man under him? Brown
is his creature-his instrument,
and through Brown he runs the
whole factory. If Brown does not
carry out the wishes of Smith, the
real master, why, Brown must go.
Is it not clear that in this case
Smiths will, which is simply to
run profitable business, may and
probably will be better carried out
if he lets his subordinate hold the
reins?
So, in the sugar business, do the
stockholders of large corporation
appoint the book-keeper, the over
seers, the engineer and sugar boiler
and the field hands? No; they
delegate all this, and they del
egate it twice, first to the di-
rectors, and through them to the
manager. The analogy to our in
situations here presented is very
close. The government is the cor
poration, the cabinet IS the planta-
ton manager, the directors are the
legislature and the stockholders
are the people. The government
is simply a large enterprise like
any other, which should be carried
on for the benefit of the people, but,
unfortunately, is not always so
administered.
Now, all human arrangements
are necessarily imperfect. The
stockholders are supposed to con-
troll the corporations, but they do
not always. Sometimes a bad
manager runs the business into
the ground. Sometimes the direc-
tors neglect the interests of the
company. Sometimes the lunas,
the engineer, the sugar boiler or
somebody else is at fault. In such
cases the remedy is to entrust the
business to better directors, to a
better manager and better SER
wants; but not for the stockholders
to take the enterprise into their
own hands and run it-into the
ground.
1t is just so in public affairs.
Public officers fail to do the peo-
pies will. They appoint corrupt
or incompetent or obnoxious sub
ordlnates who defy the people as
their superiors have defed them,
and the people stand in a blind
rage, and, apparently, helpless.
How much easier it is then to yield
to the temptation to take some
quack nostrum like this of making
all Offices elective, than to take the
slow road to a eure-the road of
patience, perseverance and devo-
&Nn 0E