The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-01-23
PROBABLE AMENDMENTS
TO THE COUNTY ACT
Extracts From the Report of Former Governor
Dole Which the Committee in Charge
of County Law is Considering.

" after the passage OF this act II SflaIl
be the duty of the Territorial board OF
public institutions by this act provided
for to organize in the manner required
herein"
AS other provisions of the act refer
to the 4th of January. IeoA, as the time
when such board shall begin to ex-
ercise its powers, lie provision of sec
ton 4S3 must contain a mistake as to
the time for its organization, which
should be January 4, 1904.
There is some vagueness IN the act
as to the status of the superintendent OF
public works after the installation OF
county governments. [ would recon-
mend definite legislation making him
the executive officer of the Territorial
board of public institutions.
In view of the foregoing suggestions,
I recommend immediate legislation
amending the county act in accordance
Herewith.
A bill carrying out portion of these
recommendations was passed by the
senate but failed in the house.
A more careful reading of the act
discovers other defective provisions. A
| Territorial board of public institutions
is created in chapter 81, to be composed
of the governor, secretary, treasurer,
struction, and attorney-general of the
Territory This chapter departs from
county matters and provides for the
management of certain Territorial IN
stitutions, naming the capitol and judi
ciary buildings, charitable, reformatory,
and penal institutions established and
supported by the Territory, harbors,
wharves, matters of pilotage and towing,
with the sweeping clause that the
board shall have power to direct the
general management of all Territorial in
stitutions These provisions would, If
carried out, withdraw the management
of the two reform schools from 'the
commissioners of public instruction, of
the insane asylum, and the leper settle
ment at Kalawao from the board of
health, of the penitentiary from the at
torney-general, of the harbors from the
United States, and of the wharves from
the superintendent of public works.
Section 483 of the county act requir-
ed that Immediately after the passage
of the act, the Territorial board OF pub
lie institutions should organize, and
sections 4S4 and AS required the board
as soon as organized, to take control
of all matters relating to harbors,
wharves, pilots, and towage, and of all
property used in connection Herewith,
and to assume the control, management,
and maintenance of the insane asylum
and the executive and judiciary build
Ings.
The board organized on the Ist of
May, and on the 4th of May notified
the superintendent of public works that
the board had assumed the control,
management, and maintenance of the
harbors, wharves, pilots and towage,
and requested him to deliver up the
control and to furnish the board with
an inventory of all the property thereof,
and a list of all the employees connected
Herewith. On the next day, May 5, the
secretary of the board received a letter
from the superintendent of public works
declining to accede to this request on
the grounds that by virtue of his office
he was charged with the control and
management of the property and the
work in question, and had no power to
surrender such control and management;
that he board had no legal existence
and therefore no right to assume such
control and management as claimed,
that that part of the county act purport-
ing to establish board of Territorial
institutions was illegal in that it was in
contravention of section As of the or
ganic act, which requires that each law
shall embrace but one subject which
shall be expressed in its title; that the
whole act was illegal for the same rea-