The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-02-14
A PROGRAM OF PLUMBER.

IL the Home Rule Legislature under
takes to burden the taxpayers of this
country with the obligation to pay UNI
adjudicated claims to an amount nearly
equal to the national debt of Hawaii
when the Republic came to an end, it
will only have itself to blame if the
business interests combine to ask Con-
gress for such a modification of the Is
land franchise as will make the election
of a native Legislature impossible here
after.
The Advertisers Washington CORE
spondent has told our readers that one
of the first things Delegate Wilcox
heard at the capital was that the ex-
pertinent of home rule in Hawaii was
on trial and that to have it succeed the
dominant party must go slow. Since
then Mr. Wilcox has been conservative
in his advice to friends at home. He
has even expressed doubts as to the
wisdom of an essay in city government.
He knows, as few native observers
know here, that what Congress has
given, Congress can take away; and
That's if the Legislature goes in for a
carnival of spoils and extravaganza, the
American lawmakers will not have to
be invoked twice to relieve the situa-
ton. They have handled things in
Alaska and Porto Rico in the spirit of
stern reform and they are capable of
doing so here. Whatever the business
interests of Hawaii may ask for the
welfare of these Islands, whatever relief
they may unitedly seek from abuses.
will be far more respectfully heard in
Congress than will the claims of tax
eating political organization which is
mot affiliated with any American party.
There is plain proposal before the
Hawaiian publicstp pay the fire claims
of 1900, which aggregate in the mass not
less than s2;000.90O These are. the
claiInsS of men, occupying and maintain
ingsthe plague breeding shacks of Chi
natown, for damages on account OF
herssanitary or accidental fires. Last
fall it was currently reported that the
Chinese merchants put up campaign
fund for the Home Rulers on the I'M
derstanding that, if the Legislature
should be carried, the claims were to
be paid in full. 1t now looks as if that
corrupt bargain was to be carried out.
But we warn the Home Rulers that if it
is fulfilled, the reckoning will be with
Congress, which has not established
this Territory to be despoiled by its alb
original inhabitants.
That there may be some just fire
claims we admit; but is a Legislature
or a court to pass upon their quality ?
Let the sufferers hire lawyer and get
judgment, if they can. against the
power which lit the torch. After
that it will be time enough either here
or at Washington. to talk about appro-
priations
Touching the claims of the prisoners
of 1895, what has this Territory, as an
integral part of the United States, to
do with them? No court has passed
upon these claims. No order of court
has been filed concerning them. They
are being pressed by foreign govern
ments with which this Territory has no
official relations. Very likely. if they
are valid. payment will fall to the Unit
led States as the sovereign here and as
q successor to the obligations of the Re
public. Why should Hawaii assume
debts that may be purely Federal?
The proposed gift of quarter of a
million dollars to Liliuokalani strikes
us as not being one of those ''rightful
subjects of legislation not inconsistent
United States" which is referred to in
Sec. So of the Organic Act Liliuoka-
lani has no claim on the treasury of
the Territory, whatever pretense of one
she may have had on the treasury of
the Republic. 1t was to Congress that
she first and properly looked for the
sum misunderstanding that there is
any propriety whatever in her plea for
to-,
than this her previous course would, as
John Emmeluth declared over and over
again to the Council of State in 1895,
have cost her her life. That boon was
spared to Liliuokalani. yet she wants a
quarter of million dollars as a salve
to her wounded feelings and as a pun
ishment to those who defended this
country against her. We insist that
this is matter also for the courts
possibly the Court of Claims of the
United States-and not for the Legis-
lature of any American Territory. The
Queen declares that the United States
took away the throne. If that is so
the United States, not Hawaii, is re-
sponsible to her. Arguing on her own
lines we may say: As we'll ask Ari-
iona to compensate the family of Cen
eFai santa ana Tor any losses they
may have incurred in property there
during the war of 184S between the
United, States and Mexico. as well ask
California to pay the claim of Governor
Castro because of his dispossession by
American troops; as well ask North Da-
kota to compensate Sitting Bull for his
losses at the hands of the United States,
as to ask the American Territory of
Hawaii to pay the late Queen of the
/ late Kingdom of Hawaii cent for her
lawful deprivation of the throne and
for her imprisonment under Judgment
of a court
IL these outrages upon the taxpayers
of Hawaii are carried as far as the
Territorial Legislature proposes to car
~ them. it may be the duty of some
citizen to apply for an injunction re-
lstraining the Treasurer from paying the
amounts called for, on the ground, il
no other presents itself, that legislative
votes cast by men who do not under
stand the official language are no more
valid. under the Organic Act, than
would be votes of jurymen similarly in
capacitated to pass upon a pending
case in court; and it will be
the further duty of the business inter-
ests of the country and their powerful
Mainland connections to appeal to Con-
gress for a radical revision of the suf-