The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-08-02
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST ., 1898
PRIVATE, NOT PUBLIC POLICY.

time Claus SpreCkels was telling people
on the street that the monarchy was
dead and that a Hawaiian republic would .
come to pass, that the Sugar King had |
been angered by the ex Queens refusal
to lease him, in the event Of her restor-
alton, large amount of sugar land at
a merely nominal price. Credible |
rumor had it that the daily conferences |
Of Mr.. Spreckels with the mistress Of
Washington Place had to do with this
proposal; and it was properly inferred
later on that the Sugar Kings sudden
face about on the matter of a republic
and his new born zeal for restoration
were due to the promise of Lilluokalani
that her return to power would be
signalized by a marked addition to the
area of land now under his control
He had bullied her into submission as
the price Of his political aid.
Mr.. Spreckels is undoubtedly a very
able man when it comes to business
intrigue, and such a scheme as we
have outlined would be altogether like
him and in accord with wise private
policy. Obviously, as a man and an
observer OF affairs, Mr.. Spreckels is not
a monarchist He left a king-ridden
land where he could make no headway
and cast in his lot with a free people,
among whom he has prospered in ex-
ceptional degree. His contempt
for monarchlcal methods and
figure heads was freely shown during
Kaakaua's time. For that functionary
he had supreme and natural disrespect
and was wont to cast the fact in the
titular sovereign's teeth that he, Claus
Spreckels, was the real ruler of the
realm--an assertion which kalakaua
Rex had not the hardihood to dispute.
AS for Liliuokalani he had no more
esteem for the divinity which was
presumed to hedge her in when he
told her under her own roof that she
would never regain the throne, than he
had for that of her predecessors.
Hence the idea of his course here
being mere matter Of business. Ever
and always he is a German-AmeriCan
inancier who thinks Kings, Queens and
Governments of use only as they may
be made to pull Chestnuts out of the
fire for him and who would to-day be a
supporter of the Provisional Govern
ment had the latter been willing to
mortgage the peoples heritage to his
monopolistic use, 1t is highly signif
cant that be is out for restoration, for
that fact, with the certainty of material
gain to the Spreckels fortune apper-
tanning to it, marks in broad lines the
difference between the Royalist and
the Republican forms Of government
and is a sound plea in itself for the
policy which the people inaugurated on
the 18th of January last.
Restoration would mean the gradual
absorption by Mr., Spreckels of the best
remaining land in the country-land to
be held under long lease and to be
titled by Asistic laborers. His king
ship over Kaakaua would soon rise to
an almost imperial control over Liliuo-
kalani or the young heir who might
succeed her. A beneficiary of great
landed estates and an enemy of small
holdings Mr.. Spreckels would prove an
obstacle to any plan of growth in popu,
lation or any scheme for the diffusion
of prosperity which might be devised.
This group would be Spreckelsville on
a large scale-the theater of one-man
power, the feudal estate Of lord and
the tenant place of yassals, farm
which all would till and of which one
man would get the increase, a dump
ing ground for Asiatic laborers, who
would drive, by force of numbers and
methods, the white laborer and native
to the wall. That is what would mean
the restoration of a woman who is
bound hand and foot to the Sugar
King, and who has no scruples, as the
Neumann power of attorney shows, at
betrayng those whom she calls cher
people" for the Judas silver of the
haOle.
On the other hand is annexation
under a Government OF the people, by
the people and for the people. There
would be no gifts of favor to Claus
Spreckels under such a system as that,
and he knows it we'll The public
lands would be homesteaded; the
classes would obtain no undue priv.
leges from the masses; the white man
and native with completeness to make
would have a fair chance in life