The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1892-12-21


Hawaiian system q bill which had
passed the House should receive the
royal signature, unless it entrenched
upon the rights of some branch of the
Government. But what were the
facts? For the first time under the
present Constitution the veto had
| been interposed by the advice of the
Cabinet. The veto should not be
used in cases of a trivial nature like
this. He had not been present in the
debate, and did not know whether he
would have favored the bill or not.
But it should not have. been vetoed
unless some mighty reasons of state
had interviewed, which was not the
case. With all Difference to the gem
| tleman who had framed the veto mes
sage, he must say that no document
so puerile had been presented to the
House at this, or indeed at any other
session. 1t contained nothing which
| had not been advanced in the debate,
and nothing in the nature of reason
at all. He did not know who drew
the veto message.
Attorney General Brown drew it.
Rep. Ashford: Then | am sorry His
Excellency should have drawn any
| thing so weak. 1t sets forth no rea-
sons which are not puerile and absurd.
They had all been rejected by the
House. The Cabinet of course had
| the right to interpOse the veto when
ever they saw fit. He did not inn
peach their good faith in the slightest
degree, but they had acted very I'M
wisely in bringing the ponderous but
delicate machinery of the veto into
operation on so trivial an occasion.
| The veto message set forth that the
| bill was an interference with the exc
cutive beet fixed the hours of labor
| of Government employees. If that
were correct then the Ministry could
| say the Government should work but
half an hour week, aud the House
| would have no remedy. IT was only
| necessary to follow out the Cabinets
| position to see how prepOsterous it
| was. The member from Waialua had
said he was going to support Her Ma
| jesty's veto. This was not Her Maj es-
| ty's veto, but the Cabinets. If the
| Act were as bad as the message said,
! it could not do very much harm, and
to bring the veto into play was like
using a steel trip hammer to crush a
bed bug. The absurdity of using such
means for such ends was what dis.
| gusted him. It would be very dam
5 gerous to establish the precedent
which would be established if this
veto were sustained. He felt no per-
sonal hostility to the Cabinet. He
admired their courage in advising thu
veto and their candor in confessing it,,
| but not their discretion in having
| done so. These were the grounds of
| his opposition to their course on this
occasion. In the absence of his friend
the member from Koolaupoko, he
would quote little Scripture-in spite
of the statement of the ADVERTISER
| that he always quoted it wrong-"He
loveth whom He chasteneth." This
might be applied to the course of the
House toward the Cabinet.
Attorney General Brown said if
that insect mentioned by the member
from the Third District had been left
alone it might have done some very
dirty work. The bill had passed by u
vote of p to Is when number of the
members of the House were away,
the majority of whom were opposed
to it. 1t was ''snap" passage. 1t
was a question of policy, and upon
that policy alone we thought the bill
could not have been made to work ow-
ing to its inapplicability and loose pro-
visions. The Cabinet thought the bill
interfered too much in its provisions,
and they did not think it would be of
any use to bring in an Act to repeal
it, as the House in the case of the
duty on playing cards had refused to
repeal one of its own bills. If the
honorable member from KolOa would
study the Constitution little more
he would find that its regulating the
Judiciary, ETC., was power specially
granted by the Constitution itself.
The question was: Shall this bill pass
Notwithstanding the veto of Her
Majesty?
The motion was lost, and the veto
sustained, upon the following divi-
sion:
Ayes-Nobles j. ~ Horner, Marsden,
W. y. Homer; Reps. Wilder, Bipikane,
Ashford, Aki, Pua, Bush, A. Homer,
Edmonds, Akina, Smith and A. S. Will
coX-i4.
Noes-Nobles Walker, Berger, Ena,
Hopkins, Pua, Cummins, Williams,
Male, Kauhane, Hind, Hoanili, Young,
Baldwin, Cornweli, Walbridge, Ander-
son, McBryde, Kanoa and Dfeier; Reps.
Kauhi, r. w. Wilcox, Kaunamano,
AdttidtAOhd, W diDullAiilJ NdHIuu, w Ulle,
Kanealii, Kaiuna and Iosepa-29
Absent-Nohles Peterson and Ihurston
Reps. Koahou and Kapahu.
The House proceeded to the consid-
Grafton of the Opium bill.
Rep. Ashford moved that the bill
(147) be taken up section by section.
Rep. Smith moved it be Indefinitely
postponed. If it were true that the
evils of opium were as great now
as under license, then the bill would
be all right, but he contended that
was not the case. The experiment
had been tried three times, in go, IA
and 'S6, and in each case the use in
creased among Hawaiians as never
before. There was smuggling still.
That went on. The same arguments
| were used then as now, and in each
case the law had been repealed. The
duty and license came very high, and
| the only way for the licensee to re-
coup himself was by very large SALE
The member made a strong historical
argument against the necessity of this
law. There was no doubt that under
| the present police administration
smuggling and gambling had increas-
ed as never before This had been de-
MED, but he could testify of his own
| knowledge that there had never been
anything like it in the last twenty
years = nothing like the shameless
public che ia drawing with crowds of
| "a