The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-03-15
Continued from Page 3D.

| is rescrving the AdironIacks and the
Catskills-think Of these. and ask your
| selves how their park availability is
| to be compared to that of Tantalus,
with mountains, sea, and tropical for
| est,-all SO close to the city, reached
| by good road and trail, and the prop
erty already of the people, except for
such little house lots as the govern
ment has parted with-selling the pub
lie birth right for a cupful of por-
riige. 1t We're absurd to have to ar
que for a park reservation on Tanta :
lus. The place does its own arguing.
for the spot is visibly a natural, God
given park; and I would show little
respect for the intelligence of the peo-
PIE OF Honolulu, and do scant honor
to the Board of Supervisors, if / eX-
pended energy in pleading that this
publicly owned tract, to obtain TIE
ike of which any city in the States
would bond itself for millions, should
be parted with no more. 1t is your
right to insist upon that.
There are some practical questions,
however. to be considered. My plea
would be that the government, now
controlling the property, make it a
putting aside their best scenic treas
ures for State parks and the Federal
government is making National parks.
1t would be doing honor to itself in
doing this; and how little this is to
ask-where the land is already owned
and does not have to be purchased. AT
best, or worst, there are few lost that
could still be sold. and it is estimated
8 aJJ ~
government would receive only $4,000
which, funded, would give the prince
" income of $500 a year. in exchange
for the peoples enjoyment of such an
estate. Better, if the government must
have money out of Tantalus, that it
put aside the land still held and re-
acquire, as opportunity offers, what it
has now lost, and then lease to private
parties-as does the State of New York
in the acknowledgements camping
bungalow rights. BY SO doing it could
not only obtain a much better income;
but it would be able to safeguard the
whole property, choosing the campers
and restricting their improvements and
use of the sites to such things as
could not injure the general landscape
effect or bar the public from enjoying
the park as q whole. If more money
still We're wished. there is a large area
over which scientific forestry could be
practiced.
But even to territories money is not
everything. There are certain benefits
that are more TO be desired, and that,
only indirectly economic. do bring in
money returns-such as delighting resi-
dents, so that the territory grows in
population; as delighting tourists, so
that they return and others come; as
Offering opportunities for experiments
in horticulture which result in increas-
ing the productiveness the charm and
the wealth Of the island; as giving
to the people a place where tired neves
can rest and exhausted constitutions
be reinvigorated-for this would be
more than merely q scenic park. Re-
serve Tantalus, where there is need
of little landscape work beyond cut
ting few trails and, some day, MAX
ing new road which, skirting the
slopes of Round Top and Sugar Loaf,
shall reach the Manoa valley and rem
der it unnecessary to come and go by
one way, and it is easy to foresee that
these and other gains shall come. AS
to the makai limit of the reservation, .
I have examined the three lines pro-
posed by the Senate Committee, by
the Research Club and as a conpro-
mise. My only query is, Why the
of the lower line-why not
save more? But my advice is, take all
you can get now, wherever the line
and the park will justify itself
and there will rise a popular demand
for it's extension such that it will be
carried lower-though the delay may
cost the community larger expense and
some loss of beauty.
Coming next to Punchbowl, we reach
a more strictly, in the sense of more
connected, town possession.
Of this again the suitability for a
scenic reservation, and even the obli-
CATION that rests upon the community
thus to save it, needs no argument of
mine When the city is seen from
afar, from the deck of an incoming
steamer, this great highshouldered
mass rising from the very midst of
the houses, and overlooking sea, port,
and the mountain valleys. presents it
self as a natural park site. Never IN
the city does one get away from it,
and among all the residents there
seems but one opinion-Punchbowl tor
a park. What to do with it. however,
and how best to make it available are
questions that press for solution.
With propositions to transform it in
to a great bouquet of f1owers-a sort,
Of set piece-by clothing it's sides with
vines of brilliant bloom, l do not SYM
pathize, even were such results i'm
mediately attaina BILE. Any city may
look for such an effect, and countless
cities have it-as Los Angeles has it
in the slopes at the entrance of Ely
sian Park, or as Rochester has it in
Highland Park; but few are the cities
that have an extinct volcano in their
very center. Would one put baby blue
ribbons on a giant, or paint an ocean
vessel to resemble a birchbark canoe?
In the gaunt sides of Punchbowf and
Head you have unique pos
sessions to be treasured, not hidden,
- I1a