The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-06-18
CONSUL GENERAL HANDLING
MANY CASES.
Requires That the Utmost Care be
Taken Before He viii Present Claims
Before the Court.

One of the busiest places in Honolulu
Is the headquarters of the United
Chinese Society where the Chinese fire
claims are being prepared for nresenta-
tion to the court of claims. Consul
General Yanr Wal Pin has charge of
the preparation of these claims of the
majority OF his countrymen and the
work appears to be done in very
careful ana thoror~h manner. Each
claim is required to stand two pro-
cesses of auditing and by the time that
it Is passed by the clerks it has been
sifted from top to bottom,
After the fire of last year it was
thought that the sufferers would have
to look to Washington for settle
ment of their claims. The consul ap-
pointed an appraising committee COM
posed of ten prominent Chinese mer-
chants. These men required that all
of the claims when presented to them
be made out in a very careful way with
full details of the articles lost Each
claim was passed upon by this commit
tee no less than 3009 being received.
Subsequently it was found that the
claimants must look to the Territory
for compensation and when the present
court of claims was established Consul
Yang Wal Pin inaugurated a far more
careful system of preparing the claims.
He requires the claimant who wishes
his claim to be handled by the consul
to give the latter power of attorney.
The consul has caused each claimant
to be carefully questioned regarding the
claim and, in addition, has secured
corroborative evidence of a strong
character.
In addition to learning the necessary
details regarding each claimant the
consuls system requires that in case
of their being a partnership the names
of all the partners, situation of the
buildings destroyed, interest of claim
ant in the buildings, owner of the land,
insurance, in whose name, the amount
and the amount paid and the COM
panies have to be given in full detail
This part of the investigation has even
been carried so far as to require the
claimants, in cases where they erected
their own buildings to get the names
of the firms from whom they purchas-
ed material to put up the buildings.
In cases where the books of business
houses were destroyed and there is no
personal record of the amount of stock
on hand or of any stock having been
purchased the claimant has been re-
quired to secure this corroborative
evidence from the customs invoices,
showing that certain goods were i'm
ported by him.
After all this is done w. c. F. Has
son is given each claim to audit before
it is presented to the court of claims He
goes carefully through each item and
after he decides that a claim is correct
he puts his approval on it and then
the matter is in shape after the rec
ular blank has been filled out by the
clerks for Paul Neumann to present to
| the court of claims. Already over 1000
| claims have been presented on behalf
of Chinese.
In the majority of cases the claims
| in the hands of the consul are those of
| laborers and some are as low as SO.
! Others 90 as hi~h as $1,000 this being
| for one of the drug firms which lost
| by the fire. Some of the larger claims
of the merchants however are being
| handled by themselves Independent of
| the consul. Practically all of the ori-
ginal 5000 claims placed with the con-
sui have been still left in his hands fol
settlement. They foot up about Sl75.-
900 Pun Kwai Leung and Lin Shen
Chow have charge of the work for the
| consul who also attends every day.