The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-04-15
THE CONSTITU ZION AND CON.
TRACT LABOR.


ftitution Of the United States which
bear on the status of contract labor
ers? Can the government actively be
come party TO any contract for labo
immigration If the contract is pro
hibited?
Article XIII. of the Constitution
reads: Neither slavery nor inyolun
tary servitude, except as a. punishment
for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, sha'' exist within
the United States, or any place sub
ject to their jurisdiction"
What is involuntary servitude" has
not been fully defined by the Supreme
Court OF the United States. In what
is known as the Sailor case, where a
seaman was imprisoned for not
fulfilling his contract, the court held
that the trainers of the Constitution
did not intend to bring seamen within
the reach of that provision, but it
plainly intimated that any other con-
tract for service which carried with
it the penalty of Imprisonment was
lilPSdI anu
The court has not passed any judg-
ment upon facts precisely similar to
those involved in the Hawaiian penal
contracts for labor, but the opinion Of
the court indicates that it will not
hesitate to declare the Hawaiian con-
tracts void
The Executive, under the circum-
stances, should not attempt to inter
fere with or regulate the immigration
of alien Iaborers, under our municipal
laws. While it is impracticable to get
at present any judicial determination
i'm the matter, is not the Executive
upon notice to observe the constitu-
tional provision that has been cited.
and allow the planters to get alien
laborers in their own way, and at their
own peril?
The Executive is not dealing with
question of morals, but of legal rights.
It is, in general sense, no longer the
caretaker of the people.
With annexation it ceased to have
any concern with national policy, and
down from their high estate and be-
came merely the agents of President
Mckinley. Whether we are or are not
to be absorbed by the Asiatics is an
affair that will be settled by Congress,
il it has not already been settled here
in past years, by ourselves.
So long as the government in Wash
ington permits the planters to pro-
mote alien immigration, the Executive
is not justified IN making itself a party
to an illegal or unconstitutional act.
If the planters, following their own
methods, bring in immigrant laborers
an violation of any law of the United
States, which does not apply to these
islands, Congress has only to extend
the laws to these Islands and forbid it.
Mr.. W. o. Smith presented valuable
paper at the Thursday conference on
the subject of labor.
But he and his former associates in
the government still seem to be under
the impression that we are still ma
ton, and that the Executive should
enforce a national policy. In fact we
are a tiny territory of the United
States, and the power here to regulate
our foreign relations does not exist.
The Executive here is only little
wheel. microscopic wheel, in the
enormous political machinery of the
American Republic.
No territory can regulate immigra-
ton We may as we'll accept this pro-
position at once No territory can
adopt any policy, for policy OF the
kind referred to is purely national
matter. All of the cut threats, and
unconvicted thieves, and swindlers
have the constitutional right to move
from one State to another, unless they
have violated a penal or police law.
With the national government alone
is the power to regulate immigration.
II the national government declines,
as it did decline by refusing to extend
the Federal laws to these Islands, to
regulate immigration to this port,
then the planters have the right to
freely import labor, under, of course,
police regulations, and the duty of the
Executive is, not to 1Isurp The power Of
Congress and attempt to enforce po-
icy here, but act simply under the
direction of President Mckinley.
If the planting interest and the COM
munity finally get into trouble because
of excessive immigration. the Execu-
tive cannot be held responsible for it.
LAND VALUES.