The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1904-03-04
FINANCES OF THE TERRITORY.

flhANCE9 UT lie lCkNiOkI.
The Governor is right when he says
that the need OF cutting down expen-
SEES of Territorial government Is para
mount. Property-owners do not want
TO pay the old rate OF taxes; indeed
they are unable to do so. and unless
the proposition is to let everything 20
TO smash and the Devil take the hind
urmost. economy of the most drastic
kind must be applied to public ex-'
penses.
That there is room as well as occa-
sion for 1t the Governor admits. lie
states in so many words that there
are now numerous unnecessary Items
of eNpense'-sl5O,0 for the harbor,
s45 900 for remodeling the judiciary
building, $4,000 for the exhibit at ST.
Louis and other items aggregating
100000, with the possibility of sub
tracing s250,000 from the budget of
the Board of Public Works This
makes "a total OF S5j0,O00 but, as the
Governor shows, over 81, 100000 must be
cut out OF the scheme of expenditure
to make strap and buckle meet the
showing almost makes one regret that
Congress, in its wisdom, did not see tit
to set up a District of Columbia gov
eminent here and spare us the admin
istrative machinery of a rich and pop
ulous State.
cutting down salaries by twenty per
cent is proposed, but this would not
meet the whole need. The amount
to be saved by horizontal reduction
OF salaries all over the Territory is but
To
leaves a deficit of $4,000 still to be
provided for. How can it be met?
one hesitates, even in the face of a
growing sentiment the other way, to
recommend the transfer of our leper
colony expenses to the Federal Govern
ment assuming the latter would Shout
der them. But by all means, as soon as
the Legislature meets, the militia
should be abolished, root and branch.
AS an unnecessary expense that or
ganizaton is heavily underscored in
the taXpaying mind; it is almost as
much under the ban as County gov
eminent. Then there is the band and
the pension of the eX-Queen to con-
slider.
1t seems a pity, on the surface, a t
least, that the question of the govern
ment control of public utilities was not
seriously taken up when the Territory
was organized. A large part of New
Zealand's revenues comes from such
sources; and various nations maintain
monopolies, as in salt, which do them
great financial service. Hawaii can
not, of course, go the lengths in such
eXpedients that are attained by indie
pendent States or by me-ruled de-
tendencies of the powers; but pre-
sumably it could. when the Territory
was organized, have taken over to it
self certain monopolies which are now
enjoyed by private corporations, and
got good profits from them.
The condition of Hawaii is this: A
people, suddenly bereft of prosperity
are left to support a government or
ganized when the country was rich and
willing TO be prodigal; organized on a
scale suitable for a great State of the
Union or for an independent power.
Taxes, necessarily high and once easily
borne, are now so oppressive that they
cannot be met without dire personal
sacrifices; and it is proposed by non
taxpaying majority to increase them
by adding governments within govern
ments for the sake of the spols of Of
flee Even without increase the Ter
ritorial government is-too expensive to
be carried; it rests like gigantic in
cubus on country which could be
wisely governed by single Board of
Supervisors, or by Il Commission OF
five men, Hawaii's capital and it's
undertakings are not So great as those
of some ordinary private corporations
which are thriftly run by a president
and small board of directors; yet the
Territory supports machinery which
would carry on any one of fifteen
American States Relief of some kind
must be had or ruin will stare us in
the face. The alternative is either
higher taxes or simpler organism of
Government, something as simple as
would come of annexation to Califor-
mia, for instance; and the source of
permanent relief seems to us to be
Congress rather than the Legislature.