The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-05-10
FROM THE
CAPITAL
Continued from Page 1,)

| plain that the agitation can not be
Quoted. While a deficit is by no
means an alarming proposition. no
| party can long afford to have a deficit
| constantly increasing with no prospects
ahead for making the government re-
ceiprs equal the expenditures. It is a
| problem that will call for statesman
ship. The tariff revisionists within the
Republican party will be encouraged
TO renew their demands for revision
and reduction. Their fight with the ex-
IRENE protectionists and standpatters.
will be renewed and much will be heard
pro and con. The scrimmaging to
avoid the blame for the condition is
already begun. Secretary Shaw start
ed il by declaring that Congress was
| to blame for appropriating as much
| money as it has been doing, the appro-
! priationS- having been mounting up to
| three quarters of billion annually
But one of Speaker Cannon's repre-
| sentativeS here in Washington has
promptly come back at Secretary Shaw.
asserting that Congress by no means
appropriated all that Secretary Shaw
| and nhe other Cabinet officers asked
for in the annual estimates and that,
although Congress has it's sins of omis-
sion and commission to answer for, the
cabinet must share the blame for the
deficit. The difficulty, of course, if the
tariff is to be revised, will be to re-
duce the schedules so as to increase
the revenue but the moment it becomes
known that revision is in prospect trade
will fall off, there will be uncertainty
in business circles and the party in
power will suffer, especially as a Con-
gressional election will follow the next
session. The absence of nearly all the
Senators and members of Congress
from Washington precludes any vigo-
rous discussion of tariff in official cir
cles but it is breaking out in spots
over the country, wherever Senators
or members with pronounced views on
the subject happen to be and as soon
as any number of them get back here
to Washington the pot will boil vigo-
rously.
THE TARIFF ISSUE.
The shifting character of public
questions in relative Importance to one
another is we'll illustrated by the tariff
issue. At the beginning of the last
session of the last Congress tariff was
uppermost The President had done
considerable to make it so. He talked
tariff revision early and late and gave
every one of his political callers
something to think about on that
subject. Then railroad rate legislation
came to the front and obscured tariff
revision. The standpatters fought the
President to standstill on tariff, but in
his annual message he came out for
rate regulation and it jumped into ma
tional prominence. It was kept there
all during the winter and has occupied
first place till recently, when it has
seemed as though with the deficit as
Stunning great proportions, just as a
few wisecares last winter prophesied
would happen, the tariff would again
come to the front and possibly the
curbing of railroads would, for the
time being be relegated to secondary
place, at least in the public mind.
Much, of necessity. will depend upon
the Presidents attitude. He has be-
come the leader of popular agitation
and the thoughts that are nearest to
him for a given time are very likely
to occupy prominent place with the
American people.
There is a prevalent feeling here
that the next year or two are to be
very important ones in matters of ma
tional administration. The country is
agog with interest over economical and
socialistic problems and looking to the
President and to Congress to do much
to cure existing evils.
PERSONAL NOTES
Mr. and Mrs. H A. Isenberg, of Ho
nolulu, arrived yesterday at the New
willard. He is quoted in the Wash
ington Post this morning as follows
with reference to Hawaiian affairs:
Just now We are prosperous in Ha-
waii because of the high price of sugar.
In the islands sugar is the keynote to
the entire Industrial and financial stu
alton. and everything is dependent up
on it. When it brings good price we
are about as well off as any people
could ask; where the market is press
ed, our fortunes sing to low ebb,
because there is no other source of
revenue.
THE most serious problem confront
ing the Hawaiian planters is the scar
city of labor. Recently we have been
losing a good many of our japanese
laborers who have emigrated to Cali
fornia, attracted by the higher wages
paid on the mainland. There is no
way to stop this emigration, and the
laws of the United States do not per-
nit US to import Cinnamon to take the
places of the Japs. The one weak
spot in the annexation of Hawaii by
the United States was this exclusion
of the best wage-earners in the world.
They are not only efficient, but cheap.
and unless we can get cheap labor our
planting industry is certain of ruin.
1t would be impossible to compete with
Cuba. which is right At your doors,
unless there was some corresponding
such as cheap labor, on our
side, considering the long distance via
Cape Horn and the Straits of MageI-
Ian that our crop has to be transport
ed"
Mr.. and Mrs William Haywood and
their children expect to sail from San
Francisco for Honolulu June II on the
China.