The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-08-15

| Journal of no particular circulation
man they have to deal with in the bra
4 writer in the Advertiser, who wants
| the people to petition Congress not to re-
enact the Chinese exclusion law, says
that, should the plantations fall, grass
would soon be growing in the streets of
| Honolulu and ruin and disaster staring
| all in the face" This is the veriest
| nonsense. 1t is the same old argument
put forth by the South in ante-bellpm
days for the perpetuation of slavery.
The ruin of the plantations, as now con-
| Quoted in Hawaii would in the end be
| the greatest blessing that could befali
| the Islands. True it would work great
| hardship for few years and many peo-
pie would stare financial ruin in the face
| but ii would be the means of saving the
| Islands to "A brighter and better future.
| just as the civil war, which destroyed
slavery, impoverished the South for
time, but later opened up the country
| 10 new riches and to a brighter and rich
er future than the old South ever
| dreamed of.
To say that sugar and coffee are all
| that can be produced in Hawaii is as ut
| terly absurd as to say that a white man
! cannot work in the cane fields of lIa
wall. Here again is an argument Of the
|
that cotton was King and ii was also de-
clared that negro slave labor was neces-
| sary for the cultivation Of cotton and of
sugar in Louisiana. The assertion has
| been proved to be absurd. When the
| civil war came on there was not a manu-
| featuring establishment in all the South
worthy Of the name. There was not a
| blast furnace nor was there a single
| coal mine in operation. Today the South
! produces MI tyrr
States of PENNSYLVANIA and Ohio. The
| South produces more coal than any three
| of the greatest coal States of the North.
| The South today has more cotton spin
| dies in her mills than has all of New
| England. and yet, forty years ago there
was not cotton factory south of Mason
and DiXons line.
| The destruction of slave labor and of
the South's leading industry was the
greatest blessing that could have befaIlen
that section of the Union. The South
| produced two and one-half times as
much cotton in 1900 as she did in 1860 and
| by far the greater part of it was raised
| by the white farmer on small tracts of
land. And while the cotton crop has
been increased nearly three-fold in forty
years the South has been developing her
| other industries. She produces her
own corn, her own wheat, her own fruits
and vegetables and not only produces
fruits and vegetables for herself but
| ships millions of dollars worth every year
to her northern neighbors. Lower Mis-
! sissippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida
Observation-Disclosures
States seems to have been considered by
Marshall as belonging to the class of
/ personal guarantees For, when the ques-
ton arose as to whether taxes in an I'M
| 0rpa niZpd 'TarritcrI- no aa
as Federal taxes elsewhere in the Union,
! he held that taxation must be uniform
| in both. The decision involved the mean
| ing of the term United States" and his
words are especially significant. He said:
| This question can admit of but one an
| swer. II is the name given to our great
republic, which is composed of States and
| Territories. The District of Columbia,
or the territory west of the Missouri is
not less within the United States than
Maryland or Pennsylvania; and it is not
| less necessary, on the principles of our
| constitution, that uniformity in the i'm
position of impostS, duties and excuses
should be observed in than in the
Observation-Disclosures against Blake.
! That principle has formed part of our
I body of constitutional law ever since its
enunciation in 1920, and such has evil
I IDENTIFY been considered a private right
within the meaning of Chief Justice. Mar
shall. But there has been one conspic-
uous deviation from the principle by act
! of Congress annexing Hawaii When
| that Pacific group was annexed to this
country Congress provided in the act of
annexation that, until legislation shall
! lie enacted extending the United States
customs laws and regulations to the Ha-
waiian Islands, the existing customs re-
/ lations of the Hawaiian Islands with the
/ United States and other countries shall
remain unchanged"
At that time a reciprocity treaty, so l.b-
eral in its provisions as to approximate
/ free trade, existed between the Islands
and this country, thus placing Hawaii
practically in the position of any other
Territory within our jurisdiction. But as
regards foreign trade, the customs du-
ties We're quite other than those of the
rest of the United States. 1t was plain
case of inequality of taxation; it was OPP
posed both to the words and the spirit of
Marshalfs principle, lad down in Lough-
borough against Blake; yet it remained
in unquestioned operation till 1900, when
Hawaii was erected into an organized
Territory and brought under our regular
customs laws.
We should, therefore, have expected
from these constitutional principles, still
operative in 1900 % that any region,
whether insular or contiguous to our pol
itical entities called States, and whether
acquired by treaty or by resolution of
annexation. would become unorganized
territory of the United States by the
mere act of acquisition; ~ that such ter
ritory would be entitled to all the private
or personal rights of the Constitution, as
interpreted by Marshall that is, to the
guarantee of life, of personal liberty and
of property: 90 that such territory would
NOT be entitled to any political rights I'M
der the Constitution, but would derive
sI,ch as it might from Congress, at the
Measure of that body. AS to uniformity
of taxation, we should have reasonable
Doubt whether or not it is to be classed
as a private right, and hence applicable
to Territsries.
How far are our expectations answered
nv the recent decisions of the Supreme
court? In the first place, the court holds
that any foreign Territory, on acqu sit!on
Inv the United States, whether by treaty
or bv resolution of annexation, becomes
at once an unorganized Territory Moth
mo can be palmer than the words of
Iustice Brown on this very point, In the
20 R'iwpil He