The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1898-06-08
4lG Opium Measure Passes Third
Reading In Senate.
MINOR BUSINESS TRANSACTED
House Working on Appropriations
Still-Objection to Count
ing Ayes.
SENATE.
Ninety-sixth Day, June Z.

| Owing to the illness of President
! Wilder, Vice-President Kauhane tooH
the chair. After the opening exer-
cises, the Vice-President called Sena-
tor Rice to the chair.
In response to the question of Sen
ator McCandless, Minister Cooper fur
nished a copy of the correspondence
between Vice-Consul Renjes and the
Foreign Office on the protest made
by the Vice-Consul for Spain that the
neutrality laws had been violated
The House bill relating to the de-
scent of property passed third read
ing, as did also the House bill per-
hitting appeals from District Magis-
trates to Circuit Judges in Chambers.
The same action was taken on the
bill directing foreign corporations to
file annual reports with the Minister
of the Interior The bill relating to
pounds and estrays passed third read
ing. The bill authorizing the Minis
ter of Finance to open current ac-
reading.
The joint conference committee on
the amendments to the cemetery act
reported that the Senate amendments
had been adopted.
The Revision Committee reported
that the opium bill had been revised
and prepared.
Senator Baldwin said: have been
L, IL
this opium bill, and l wish to make a
brief statement of my views. | am
satisfied that most of those who have
criticised the bill have not understood
it. especially as it now stands after
we have amended it. The bill is not,
properly speaking, a License Act, as
the term is usually understood. 1t is
an act to carry out on a larger scale
the idea that has been adopted by the
Board of Health for several years
past of furnishing opium in small
quantities here in Honolulu, to con-
firmed users of opium on the recon-
mendatiOn of the Government physi-
clan. The Act provides for Board
in each district, to consist of the Gov
ernment physician, the Magistrate and
the Sheriff, or Deputy Sheriff of the
district, who shall have authority, un-
der the regulations of the Board of
Health, to issue permits to confirmed
users of opium only, to use the drug,
which is to be furnished them in
small quantities from time to time
by said Board. The bill is in every
respect well guarded.
What to do with the opium ques-
ton has been one of the very difficult
problems we have had to deal with in
this country. We have such an ex-
tensive coast line around each Island
that it is almost impossible to prevent
smuggling, and we have a large pOpu- |
lation here who are bound to obtain
opium in that way if the law prohibits
them from obtaining it in any other
way. The smugglers are said to bribe
and corrupt the Custom House and
Police officers, and in this way demo-
raliZe the officials to whom we look to
execute and carry out our laws.
For thirty-fve years it has been my
business to superintend labOrers on
various plantations, and l can say,
without OstentatiOn. that / have had
a good deal of experience in dealing
with men. One result of my expert
ence, which I have observed at differ
ent times in a marked way, is that
there is no one thing more demOraliz-
ing to men on plantation, or that
tends more to disturb law and order
and discipline, than some secret evil
or wrong that is being carried on,
some wrong that the men are engaged
in on the sly. So. when the Marshal
and the Sheriffs call on US to, in soma
way. regulate the opium evil, [ fully
their reasons for the re-
quest. Now, I do not believe that
many Of the good people who criticise
this bill give due consideration to the
evils that result from opium SNUG
Cling. They look with horror on tho
mere thought of licensing the drug in
any form, and do not balance up care
fully all of the evils pro and con.
I would not vote for bill to license !
opium joints, or a bill that would |
allow it to come to any importer, un- |