The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-03-30
THE COUNTY ACT.

The bill introduced in the House by
REPRESENTATIVE Makekaus entitled, IAN
Act providing for and creating certain
counties in the Territory of Hawaii,
and providing a form of government
for such Counties is fearfully ana
wonderfully made
Ia its printed form il consists Of for
ty-nine large pages. of which only
about one-third have~anyth1ng to DO
with counties or their government. The
refiainder is made UP of an elaborate
system. or, more properly, chaos of
provisions respecting schools and
schemes for the organization and gov
eminent of cities, towns and villages.
If the small politicians and would-be
bosses who have kindly undertaken to
lay out the legislators work for them,
and tell them what they ought to do
and how to do it, had taken the trouble
to refer to section As of the Organic Act
they might have read THAT each law
shall embrace but one subject, which
shall be expressed in it's title.
Another very important part of the
Organic Act, which the unofficial law
makers seem tot have forgotten all
about, is the restrictions on the debt
pOWtI COulcIIlSl III StCllOiA
55 of that most inconvenient and OBJ
structive act. To make the nature and
scope of these restrictions plain it will
be best to quote a considerable part
of this section in full. as follows:
Nor shall any debt be authorized to
be contracted by or on behalf of the
Territory, OR ANY POLITICAL OR
MUNICIPAL CORPORATION OR
SUBDIVISION THEREOF, except to
pay the interest on the existing indebt-
edness, or suppress insurrection, or to
provide for the common defense, ex-
eept that in addition to any indebted
ness created for such purpose the Leg
islature may authorize loans by the
Territory, OR ANY SUCH SUBDIVI-
SION THEREOF, for the erection of
penal, charitable and educational insti-
tutions, and for public buildings,
wharves, roads and harbor and other
improvements, but the total of such in
debtedness incurred in any one year by
the Territory OR ANY SUBDIVISION
shall not exceed one per centum upon
the assessed value of the Territory or
subdivision thereof, as the case may
be, as shown by the last general assess
ment for taxation. and the total indebt-
edness for the Territory shall not at
any time be extended beyond seven per
eentum of such assessed value, and the
total Indebtedness of any subdivision
shall not at any time be extended be-
,yond three per -centum of such assessed
value nor shall any bond or
instrument of such Indebtedness be is
sued unless made redeemable' in not
more than five years and payable in
NOT MORE THAN FIFTEEN YEARS
from the date of the issue thereof; NOR
SHALL ANY SUCH BOND OR IN
DEBTEDNESS BE INCURRED I'M
I'LL APPROVED. by THE PRESI-
DENT OF THE UNITED STATES
All this is plain enough: about as
plain as the English language can make
it, but the trouble Is that a large pro-
portion of the legislators do not under
stand the English language and the
unofficial legislators who draw their
bills for them either do. not know or
do not care what the Organic Act does
or does not contain. They probably
pocket their little fees, laughing in
their sleeves as they say to themselves,
Whats the odds; these fellows will
never know the difference"
NOW, with these plain provisions of
the Organic Act staring them in the
face, what do these professors of legis-
lative patchwork put in the proposed
County Government Act? To go into
details would be tedious and is unneces-
sary. Let one sample suffice for the
present. Notwithstanding the Organic
Act forbids Indebtedness being incurred
in any one year beyond one per centum
of the assessed value, Mr. Makekau's
bill authorizes even as small and I'M
important subdivisions as school dis
tricts to borrow money and issue bonds
for FIVE PER CENT of the assessed
value at one lick, and SO far as the
bill is concerned, they can go on and
borrow money and issue bonds to an in
definite extent, provided only major
ity of the taxpayers vote for it. 1t is
to be remembered that a majority of
taxpayers may pay a very small minor
ity of the taxes. The fact that the pro-
posed law authorizes the issuing of
twenty-year bonds, while the Organic
Act limits the time at fifteen years.
and the absolute ignoring of the APP
prevail of the President of the United
States only serve to further illustrate
the general craziness of the whole
measure.
The beauty of the above described
policy viii be better appreciated when
it is understood that under the pro-
posed county governments the school
age is to extend from six to twenty
one years of age, and that any locality
EIGHT persons within those
ages may be set apart as a school dis
trict. The giving authority to a major
ity of the taxpayers in a locality where
there may be as few as EIGHT persons
under twenty-one years of age to issue
bonds is one of the most
charming pieces of unsophisticated ig-
norance with which this community
has been favored for a long time. 1t is
the old st.ry; people who have no ade-
auate sense of humor never know when
they are making themselves a source
Of amusement to others.