The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-10-01
THE OLAA LAND SALES
MUCH INTEREST SHOWN IN THE
MATTER.
Purchasers Visit Their New Property.
What the Hilo Papers say About the
Subject-Prices Paid.

HILO, September 29.-The interest in
the sale of the Olaa lands last week,
so far from abating, is, If anything
growing. A large number of the pur-
chasers visited the land they purchased
last Sunday and some of them saw it
for the first time then. They found
some of the squatters there in possess
sion among them j. Ryan, the king
pin of the squatters. Ryan and the
others received the visitors Hospitality,
but they would not move off until the
Supreme court of the United States had
said they had no claim. AS the Ha-
waiian Government guarantees the pur-
chasers peaCeable possession, this diffe-
renee of opinion as to who really own
ed the land was not allowed to mar the
festivities of the day
The Hawaii Herald this week gives a
complete list of the purchasers with the
prices paid. The highest price paid for
any one of the fifty acre tracts was $500
paid by G. V. Jakins for tract No. q
The lowest price was $3.50 for tract No.
229 by Lonoaea. OF the eighty
each; twenty-eight sold for from $1,000
to $1425 each; thirty-nine sold for from
$500 to 1915 each. The total sale amount
ed to $50, 269O1.
The Hilo Tribune says of the land:
las to the character of the land lis
whole, it seems to be all that could be
desired, or at any rate expected Some
portions to be sure have considerable
a-a, and some have streaks of pahoe-
hoe, but in general the soil is deep and
fertile. The forest growth is not as
heavy as generally prevails in the old
Olaa tract at the same elevation, but
this is an advantage rather than other
wise. The buyers think they will be
able to raise cane and eventually get
convenient no col ri
border upon the new Olaa road from
three miles to nine miles"
OF the sale and the price the Tribune
says
IF the Hawaiian Government had
made the financial condition of the re-
cent land sale a little easier CD and
provided that the purchaser need not
pay anything for a period of ten years,
instead of merely requiring him to pay
interest it is hard to tell to what fabu-
lous figure the eager bidders might not
have raised the selling price. Speculation
and gambling are generally not very
much encouraged by governments, IS
they are considered contrary to public
policy but if the prices paid-on paper-
for the recent choice cuts of Olaa back
woods are anything but the rankest
kind of speculation, there are more can
didates in this community for an asy-
lum for the feeble minded than we had
previously suspected. In looking over
the list of purchasers we discern a
certain number who undoubtedly either
belong to, the latter or are under the
effect of the small farmer" hypnosis.
AS to therest, if they are not specula-
ting in futures, and putting up a mar
gin under the name of interest pay
able semi annually in advance" with
the design of transferring upon a rise
in the market without putting up a
York shilling of purchase price, they are
showing less acuteness in this THAI in
their other business transactions =
How many of these people intend
to maintain a continuous residence for
six years on this land, improve % per
cent of it and wait ten year for a pa
tent? Or to whom do they expect to sell
who will do this? Yet if this is not the
object of the sale, and if this is not the
meaning of the inquisitorial series of
twenty-four questions, copy of which
which he must ultimately answer, what
which he mush ultimately answer, what
is their object?
SO We submit that there is some
thing rotten in the public land system
when men who pay, or promise to pay
$50 an acre for uncleared forest land are
bound down to these conditions; or, on
the other hand, where men who assum-
eddy bind themselves down to such con-
ditions pay $50 per acre for such land"