The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-07-20
WEIGHED, FOUND WANTING.

WEIGHED, FOUND WANTING.
Now that the legislative branch OF
the Territorial Government has come
out squarely and let it's hand be shown,
declining to pass necessary legislation
with a view to forcing the Executive
to call an extra session at which gen
eral legislation could be considered, the
expected has happened. Until this time
the Executive has remained silent, al
loving the tempest of words with which
the advocates of such extra session
have voiced their arguments to rage
without the word which would still it.
1t is in a clear-cut statement that this
word is spoken. Acting Governor
Cooper takes the record of the Legisla-
ture and upon it holds that he cannot
see how any good thing can come out
of such a body of men as has misused
public office during the past four
months.
1t is then on the record that the ma
jority party must be judged when the
work of the two sessions is considered.
The record is so fragrant that it is still
in the nostrils of the people. 1t is not
only a record of things done but more
largely of things not done. Coming to-
gether under auspices which should
have called forth the best efforts of any
body of men, with the eyes not only of
the men of this Territory but of the
entire country upon them, the members
of the majority party in both Houses
elected to sit down and spend their
days in idle talk instead of work. From
such men there came little which was
of value. There was an income tax
measure passed, but it was the bill of
a Republican. There were bills passed
and signed providing for changes in the
courts and for a new judge, but there
were also some of the most preposter-
Gus measures put through, while a rec
ord of those propositions which were
introduced would read like the journal
of a school-boy's parliament rather
than of body formed of men chosen
by the free voters of a Territory of the
United States. Ff1e there were many
meritorious measures before the Legis-
1ature. The Loan bill and the measure
carrying the items under it We're mod
els of their kind but it was just such
measures which were allowed to die
while bills which were aimed to put into
practice the dreams of populist theo-
rists were being debated.
From men whose sober moments were
given to discussions such as have mark
ed the hot days of the summer there
is to be expected nothing more sensible
in the future. The past four months
of legislative experience has cost the
enfeebled Treasury just $4,000. What
excuse could be given by an Executive
who would call together for another
sixty days of general work these men.
If his appointing superior should ask
for one? What would Mr.. Cooper say
to Mr.. Mckinley If he was called upon
to explain call for an extra session?
There would be a degree of magma
ton in the man who could look for
good things from this aggregation
which would mark him for a modern
novelist or showman's bill-writer. It
is with the cold eye of reason that the
Legislature is viewed by the Executive,
and in consequence the decision to have
no more of the horse-play of the spring
and summer was not unexpected
Nothing could be put more forcibly
than the answer to the arrangement
talked of by some Republicans that
there be a stipulation that the pro-
posed extra session discuss nothing but
loan bills and promise to let the gen.
eral legislation alone. This would be
qualification of the powers of the CO.
ordinate branches of the Government
The Organic Act does not limit the
matters which may be taken up by a
special session and for the Governor to
attempt it would be to expose himself
to the ridicule of all men when the leg
islators ignored the stipulation and
went in for the County bills the cumu-
lative-voting propositions, the single
tax and the initiative and referendum
plans which have kept the brains of
the haole leaders of the Home Rulers
working over time for the past months.
There can be made no bargain with in
competency. That the men of the In
dependent party have shown themselves
incapable of close hard thinking, as is
required by those who would make the
laws of transition period, seems to be
proven. The question comes, then, as
to the discipline which the two years
of leanness of the Treasury will serve
to enforce. There will be inconve-
niences, but they will fall as much
upon the men who voted to be repre-
sented here by the incompetents who
have sat in the throne-room of their
aliis and Knocked the efforts which
raised this country to its splendid con-
dition by their puerile votes.of lack of
confidence and resolutions asking for
removals, as they will on the heads of
the thoughtful people who now say
that it is better to bear the ills we have
than to fly to others we know not of.
Acting Governor Cooper will find that
he has the backing of the business COM
munity in his stand that any other f,
gathering OF this Legislature would be ;
a calamity. Let them go back to their
and give an account of
their actions. And IL they will look
upon themselves as the majority Of the
people in the city look upon them, per-
haps some of them will have the grace
70 resign their places. Not many, sure |