The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-05-21
around Oahu
On a Bike

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| desert waste today if it weren't for
Henry Cobb Adams and Father Xavier
! and a few more good fellows who
never kick or knock, who do today's
work as we'll as they can and who
constantly radiate good cheer. The
soil is only about three inches deep
over there and besides, such as it is,
it's nearly all held by a few outsiders
/ who won't let go. Fifty thousand
acres owned by five people and that's
about all there is over. there that would
feed jack rabbit or that a goat
could climb. You know down in New
Zealand they tax unimproyed and I'M
occupied land higher than the i'm
, proved Result, the monopolist had to
sell out at reasonable figures to the
man who wanted a home and was will
| ing to work for it. L wonder if that
isn't what KooIaupoko needs. Think
| that over a bit and see what you make
! of il.
An acre of average wet or rice land
| properly cultivated will produce about
two tons of paddy Gwo crops of a ton
each) which is worth now about $25
per ton. The absentee landlord
charges SIS to $40 per acre for
this land the rate depending
upon quality and location, and
the average being about $25. I sus-
pect that the fellow who grows rice
successfully, under such conditions
isn't addicted to porterhouse steaks
with mushrooms and champagne. All
| well, Chas. Wagner's THE Simple
Life" is quite a popular book now
adays. Let US comfort ourselves with
the reflection that it may be just as
we'll. That fellow might get into bad
habits if he could make more than
| enough out of his lease TO just keep
soul and body together.
| L noted one rather paradoxical fea-
ture of the rice business. The land
! lords insist and declare under oath
that this rice land is only worth from
| $50 to 500 per acre and yet any of
| them would have to be dead broke be-
! fore he would sell an acre for less than
$500 to $500. Perhaps an extreme in
stance is that of the Hui of Waikane.
Judge Somebody, one of the share
Z
name) makes the return to the Asses
/ Sor for the Hui. He says their fifty
acres of rice land is worth $50 an acre
and returns the whole property at
| S9.6 CO.,. Now it happened recently that
one or two of the shareholders got hard
up and were induced to part with
| little of their good stuff and the price
| they got was $500 per share. The
whole number of shares in the hui is
! thirty-five. so it suffic GENTLY appears to
! the man with the wooden head that the
market value of the whole property is
! SOS 600 instead of $9,607. How about
! that Judge? Was mathematics left
out of the curriculum of the school
! you attended? Now little more figur-
! ing by the man with the wooden head
and it quite as sufficiently appears
that the market value of that rice
J land is 1916 per acre. the same rice
! land the Judge thought was only
worth $50. I wonder if Mr. Holt no
tices those little discrepancies and if
so. how he manages to let the Judge
/ down without a jolt and yet get, in
taxes, something near what the Terri
tory is entitled to. 1 believe some of
the members of that hui were righte-
ously indignant when the item of
$4,000 or so for Improvement of the
roads in Koolaupoko was stricken
from the appropriation. That's a
horse of a different color.
LAW AND THE LAND.
There is law in this Territory Ga
foot law I came near saying. but
caught myself just in time) that when
a fellow has so much land that he
cannot conveniently figure out how
many acres it amounts to- he may say
how much rent he gets from it and
then the assessor is to multiply the
rent by eight and call that the value
of the land. I don't know what the
title of the statute is but presume it
would be a law to exempt from taxa
ton large tracts of unimproved land
to increase the taxes of the small
holder who is too poor to make fight
and incidentally to promote the crime
of perjury.
The roads in Koolaupoko and Koo-
lauloa are pretty bad; they really need
that $4,000. If Senator McCandle~S
had invited the Territorial solons to
ride with him from Heeia to Kahul<l
he would have got their unanimous
vote for the appropriation Nothing
like an. object les son as an effective
argument.
IN THE CANE COUNTRY.
AS you get up into Koolauloa the
soil gets better and by and by there's
enough of it to grow cane. Laie is do
ing pretty we'll and Kahuku is expand
ing under the beneficent influence OF
four and fraction sugar. At Waia-
lua, the machinery runs without fric-
ton and everybody is busy and cheer
full. l hear that the company has ac-
quired, by lease or purchase about
everything north of Wahiawa colony.
L wonder how many of the plain peo-
pie own stock in Waialua or Eva or
Oahu or Honolulu? Lincoln said God
must love the plain people. He has
made so many of Them I sometimes
think there is room for speculation on
that subject. Manager Bidgood at Ha-
leiwa certainly knows how to keep a
hotel You get solid comfort there,
whether you stay an hour or month.
Nv IL,