The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-08-21
JAPS AND OUR SUFFRAGE.
COL. BLOUNT ASSERTED THE
MONROE DOCTRINE.
News Which Was Kept Under Cover
for Some Time-The Govern
ment Very Reticent.


important and decisive character often
makes its first appearance here in the
correspondence columns of San Fran.
cisco dailies, is one that has been fire..
quently noted. This does not i'm.
|ply that the Honolulu journals are
asleep, or that they do not have a nose
for news. 1t is their misfortune, not
their fault, that SO much goes by them
They are continually bounded and
besieged by people Of influence in local
affairs to omit this or suppress that, and
by yielding to the opportunities, find
themselves scooped and beaten once
a fortnight by the unmuzzled and un-
impeded reporters of the Coast.
The most important news of the
present month has never seen print in
Honolulu, though it is known to a
hundred people or more and has been
a subject of rumor and gossip on the
street. By the next mail, or possibly
the one thereafter, it will all be spread
before this public in the Associated
Press kilograms of a fortnight's previous
date-whereat the usual sheer will be
heard in Honolulu editorial rooms that
the majority of the people of this city
are compelled to depend on newspa-
pers printed 1000 miles away to learn
what has been going on among them.
selves.
Three weeks ago it was known that
Japan was again pressing the Provision
al Government in sharp and coercive
manner for the concession of the fran
chise, and the idea got about that
Uncle Sam had interviewed to protect
the Hawaiian interest. Some of the
correspondents got hold Of the story
and sent is away; but when reporters
or the STAR interviewed members of
the Government about it they were met
by unanimous request to hush up and
confine themselves to innocuous nara
ton of chefa cases in the District
Court and of the success that has been
made in grating the Upas tree on the
common taro root of commerce.
The STAR had knocked over all the
canons OF journalism twice by with.
holding the facts about the Royalist
management of the Custom House
with regard to kite-h )wn checks and
Of the inability of leading men,
Der of the ex Queens cabinet to make
good the drafts he had drawn on HA
waiian funds in the hands Of the late
Consul-General Mckinley for the ex
penses of his family abroad-a brace of
scandals which San Francisco journals
would have spread over their first pages
with ample Illustration. Inasmuch as
these seemed to be concessions enough
10 the ancient and accepted Honolulu
idea that a paper should be known by
what it does not print, the STAR re-
porters were told to take up the Jap
anese question, find out what the
correspondents had sent away and
compare it with the facts already in
their keeping. The result was some
what surprising.
1t appears that when the fresh Jap
anese demands were received, the Pro-
visional Government called United
States Minister Blount into consuIta-
ton and showed him the correspond.
ence. This, it is said, contained an
intimation that Japan, in the event of a
final refusal of the Provisional Govern,
ment to grant the voting privilege to its
subjects on the same terms as are given
people of European, Hawaiian and
American allegiance, would withdraw
all its laborers from this group. When
Mr. Blount read this he laughed
heartily, and on returning to the lega-
ton penned a note to the Foreign
Office to the effect that the United
States would not permit the Hawaiian
Government to grant the Japanese
demand, even if it should be so in
clined. The exact word was not per-
nit but "allow." "My Government
will not allow such proceeding" said
the American Minister.
1t has been impossible to get an in.
terpretaton from the Government as to
this action, the Ministers saying that
they would not discuss diplomatic
affair in the local prints. There is but
one view to take of it, however, and
that is the purpose it shows on the part
of the United States to keep foreign
hands off the domestic concerns of the
lgroup.
There the matter rests. Japan say:
that Hawaii must extend the suffrage
America says that she must not.
CIRCUIT COURT PROCEEDINGS