The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1893-07-06
National Marriage and Divorce.

National Marriage and Divorce.
EDITOR BULLETIN
History is full of dismal failures
resulting from the efforts made to
weld into one administrative sys-
tenn nations with no cotcrminous
land neutrality-suspicious., moreover,
whose extent and resources pro-
claimed that their we'll being lay ia
Independence alone. There are per-
sons who affect to believe that there |
is no difference between land and |
water frontiers, that the inclusion of |
Hawaii in a confederacy of states a
hundred times its size and separated
by 1000 miles of ocean, would be
much the same for Hawaii as the in
clusion of Texas or California. In
the case of Canada, so often quoted
in illustration, it must be admitted
that if its internal administration
were largely controlled from Lon
don, where, even if representation
in the Imperial Legislature were al
lowed, the province would be largely
in the minority, it would then be
better to have a sub-divided Canada
controlled from Washington where
each state of the present Dominion
would have the same rights as New
York or Ohio. But the Canada of
to-day is practically an independent
nation.
1t may be that the day is not so
very far distant when the English
tongue will be spoken by some hun
dreds of millions between the Gulf
Of Mexico and the Arctic circle, but
to suppose that they would take
advice or dictation from either Lon
don or Washington is not in line
with the present trend of all liberty
loving races for home rule.
The union between England and
America was a happy one till King
George and his friends forced the
other side to demand a judicial separ-
alton. The colonists certainly we're
not backward in singing the virtues
of the two first Guelphs, and for a
while expressing admiration for the
talents of third. But we remem-
Der that the continent was then the
junior partner and the island the
senior. 1t would be different now
uuu IllS COuuCStloll DSIus L HS llouSC
of Commons would contain about
400 Americans, including fair
sprinkling of New York bosses and
western cowboys, while the Lords
would be swamped with pork-men
from Chicago and wooden-nutmeg
merchants from New England. The
administration of the army, navy,
the colonies and India would be in
their hands, and the island would
find out that when it went hunting
with continent that the continent
got the deer and the island the rab-
bits.
Take, for example, the case of
Britain. The Romans found her
savage but free; they left her with q
thin veneer of civilization and a
thick coating of helplessness. No
matter how refined or populous or
powerful the island became, she
would still have been but province
and her people provincials SO long
as the strings of government were
arranged and pulled in Rome. When
after centuries of struggle the
Britons we're enslaved or massacred
or driven into the highlands of
Wales or Cornwall. the semi savage
Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Danes and
other northern cut-throats were be-
ing knit together and started on the
road to progress. Then came the
love-son of the Norman tanners
daughter and down went the English
like nine-pins.
Fortunately for the country, how
ever, the Norman and Angevin
princes made London their head
quarters, SO that in time the victim
became the parent state, and the
victor the province. The enthusiasts
Of the time thought it possible that
the whole of England and the half
of France would be happy together
when governed from London. But
nature had been beforehand by in
terposing narrow strip of sea not
one-hundredth as wide as that roll
ing between Hawaii and America.
This insignificant strait proclaimed
in manner not to be misunderstood
that nothing but force could hold
the two sides of the same political
system. Even had the Normans be-
haved as mercilessly to the whole
country as they did to Yorkshire and
Durham, and peopled the land with
French adventures, the descendants
of the latter would have called
themselves Englishmen, and have
struggled till they obtained a poll
tical divorce. 1t may be said that it
would have been better for both
Briton and Gaul had they obeyed
one government, whether the latter
was on the Thames or the Seine.
Millions of lives and money might
have been saved by such a fedora
! ton.
To the philosopher in his closet
such view may commend itself.
! He may even express regret that
men the world over do not obey the
same central administration, speak
the same tongue, profess the same
faith, and resemble each other like
pins turned out by the same machine
In such world there would be no
room for Alexanders and Napoleons,
for Cromwells and Fredericks-per-
haps not even for Walpoles and
Thurstons. But the practical man
has to deal with facts and problems
as he finds them. And the fact of all