The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1892-03-22
1T MUST BE CHANGED.

Unless the election law is
amended /, for one, will not serve as
inspector again" remarked a gen.
tleman lately, who was chairman
of one of the boards at the last
election. What the gentleman OBJ
jected to was the "too great risk"
He did not want to be deprived of
his civil rights as the consequence
of some honest error committed in
the vain attempt to disentangle the
intricacies of confused and mis-
leading statute.
The text is one which must be
harped on until the conviction be-
comes general that the election
law must be carefully revised. No
doubt bills to amend it will be in
troduced in superhuity. But that
is not what is wanted. The present
law has been spoiled by botching
and it cannot be cured by repeti.
ton of the same process. One Of
the greatest curses of the hit OF
miss, rule of thumb plan of legis-
lation, which obtains here and else.
where, is that it destroys all the
harmony, unity and simplicity o.
legislation. A provision is tackled
upon a statute by an impatient
majority, weary of debate
which is entirely incongru
Gus with the rest of itG
provisions. The mischief thai
thoughtless meddling does If
this way can hardly be exagger
ated. It results for one thing il
such loose and careless Language
that the meaning of many section:
Of the laws can never be ascer
tanned, for the simple reason tina
they do not express any single
idea at all. Sections made in this
way can not, except by accident
convey a definite idea, simply be
cause the person inserting then
did not have clear conception O
his own intentions. Such amend
ments, arising in the course of de
bate and hastily inserted in a bill
generally result from a feeling tha
change in a certain direction
would be a good thing, and so the
individual who is struck by the
idea proceeds to embody it in ar
amendment, without ever pausinf
to inquire what the full effect vii
be. If later an unexpected case
arises the legislator will not b.
able to say what the section re
quires which he drafted himself
Imagine scientific questions being
settled as laws are made
AS matter of theory, hardly {
worse method of law making coult
be devised than that practised BY
self-governing peoples all over til,
world. And yet it is much easie
TO point out the evil thar
to indicate the remedy. JOIN
Stuart Mill proposed that all law
should be made by a commission
of experts, the popular assembly
to have merely veto power. Thi
would have insured the drafting O
clear, definite and rational statute
which would not deal with matter
outside of the legislators province
and would not prescribe means in
adequate to the ends proposed
But whether, in such a plan, tn
will of the people would be done i
not so clear. At anyrate, the plal
seems to have met with no accept
ance.
However this may be, it is Ger
tain that the present election Law
is a first-class illustration of all tn
evils of the law-making method
now in vogue. This is especial,
unfortunate, as it embodies a grea
advance upon all previous statutes
in the secret ballot, a permanen
gain for the purity and honesty o
our elections which must never b
abandoned.