The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-08-28
JEALOUS SECRECY
Says flourish, Has Been
Preserved.
Social and Labor Conditions of
Islands Unknown In
United States.

MR.. EDITOR: - In the opinion o.
the average man in the States the in
terests here that are asking for annex
teal missionary sugar planters who
have stolen the Islands from the ma
tives and now wish to increase 20 ant
80 per cent dividends by the addition
of the new tariff. This opinion has
been sedulously fostered by the sugar
trust and journals which for one rea-
son and another are opposed to annex
alton and an American foreign policy
And against this we have but the tes-
timony of some religious journals nat
urally attached to the child of the A.
| B. C. F. NJ; the letters of Hawaiians,
commissioners and others and few
journals, which, favoring annexation
and a foreign policy, have taken the
trouble to go beyond the evident geo.
graphical, strategic and commercial
advantages which the Islands present
1t is curious that this first, and in
reality, only American colony, is al
most entirely without human interest
to the parent country. Of course, we
may explain this seemingly unnatural
parental Indifference by the absence of
all colonial or foreign policy and the
concentration of interest at home, but
I am confident that this is only half of
the story. While the process of evan
geliZation was going on, the religious
world followed developments, for the
missionaries kept the home Organ1Za-
tions informed. But when the more
complicated, more profoundly difficult
and less romantic task of building up
community here upon the necessary
political and commercial basis was I'M
dertaken, the mother country had no
more information than was picked
out of Scanty Island papers or sent
over by incompetent correspondents.
The results as they stand today
show the same capacity for self-gov-
eminent, the same individual intelli-
gence and independence of action, the
same capacity for organization that
has characterized the Anglo-Saxon col
oniZers the world over. Hawaii is
better governed than any, but very
few communities in the States, and
there is a public moral sense here
that is more acute and better directed
than in any American city l am &C
quainted with
1t is true she cannot continue to
stand alone, for she is in reality but a
part of the whole from which her MAX
ers came out But this result of which
we have as good a right to be proud
as the English have for their civilizing
work in India or Egypt, is practically
unknown at home, and calls out SYM
pathetic appreciation only from the few
who happen to know the inside from
personal connection or the good for
tune of travel AS I have intimated,
the home community is only partially
responsible for this. There has been
here an ingrained almost traditional
attitude Of Jealous secrecy about the
problems that have arisen here and the
methods of meeting them.
1t may have been partially the zeal
OF the business man protecting. his pri-
vate affairs from the public eye, and
partially an unwillingness to provoke
hostile criticism by letting the dark
sides of commercial and political his
tory come to American eyes and ears.
The preservation of this attitude would
have been impossible in a larger COM
enforced publicity 1t has been, l
think, without doubt most unfortunate
for the Islands, in its success.
If one wishes sympathetic apprecia-
ton, the one thing worse than the
knowledge of his faults and misfor-
tunes is ignorance. Undoubtedly the
earlier condition Of the contract labor
er on the sugar plantation approached
the knowledge of the advance which
has marked the later years and is Gull
minating in profit-sharing and a con-
tract on which white labor may replace
Oriental, would have aroused an in
terest that would have far outweighed
the prejudice earlier conditions might
have caused.
a free and open discussion in Island
papers of this and other problems
would have kept Hawaii in American
conscfences, and have insured the sym
pathy which any human struggle calls
forth when it is known. What is
known in the States of the affectionate
interest with which the native has been
followed or the necessarily superficial
character of the Christianity he could
assume in a generation or two? Who
KNOWS OF the work among Chinese and
Japanese, the kindergartens that are
reaching out toward all classes and ma
tlonalities? There is only one wav in
which these activities can possibly he
brought to popular consciousness. and
that is by the constant. fearless re-
porting Of the concrete events. out of
which they have sprung.
The average man is interested only
in concrete happenings. Acquaintance
with the scandals, which native life
and foreign elements have involved
awakes his interest in the means which
are taken to check them. The pictures
Of labOrers fined and beaten carries
with it the interest in the scientific
methods which have replaced in a large
part the unintelligent and brutal
means Of sugar planting and making.
I am confident that there is not a