The Hawaiian gazette., 1908-12-08
MUNICIPAL BILL
GRANTS LITTLE
cFrOm saturdays Advertiser,

Honolulu, as city, IS IN the same
position practically as it was when it
was the County of Oahu, the Municipal
Act giving it new name and few
frills, is the opinion of Judge Kings.
bury, the principal speaker at the meet.
ing last night of the Civic Section of
the Mems League, held in the parlor
of the Central Union church. The
Judge denied any idea of criticism or
faultfnding, desiring only to state the
4 facts as he found them, the facts be-
ing that the corporation was body
i without blood, a corporation without
the power to raise money by taxation,
without, the power of borrowing money
and without the privileges of suing or
being sued. 1t is municipality with
out independence and unable to do any
thing ON its own initiative without con.
sulting "pa and ma. -
The municipality had defenders at
the meeting, however, and Judge Whit
ney tilted few rounds to show that
there was way for a judgment against
the municipality to be collected; City
and County Supervisor elect Dan
Logan stated number of reasons why
q the municipality should be limited in
its powers and County Engineer Gere
thought the municipality was, at least,
in no worse shape than it had been pre-.
viously.
The parlor of the church was well
filed with members of the Men g
League and others at the meeting,
! which was attended by number of
lawyers and other professional men.
Judge Kingsbury was the only set
/ speaker, but his short address on the
4 powers of the Mayor and Board of Su-
cited multitude of questions and start
ed q warm debate.
In defining the position of the Mayor
and Supervisors, Judge Kingsbury said
that their power was the power of the
! city, which was circumscribed and
limited to a degree unknown in any
other city in America. No other NUM-
4 cipality of which he had knowledge
Had so little power as that of the City
Rnd County of Honolulu. He compared
4 Che city charter with the charters of
i Chicago, Butte and Tacoma, each of
which had taxing powers and were self
contained corporate bodies. He thought
that probably the Legislature knew
4 what it was doing when it curtailed
Honolulu IS powers and made it neees
sary for the municipality to have to
look for all its money from another
body, the Territory. Under the Organic
4 Act the city could have been given
4 the power, of taxation and independ-
ence, as id every other Territory under
similar Organic Acts these powers had
been conferred on municipalities.
AS for the powers of the Mayor and |
4 the Supervisors, these could be stated
very concisely: The Mayor has the
power of appointment, the Supervisors |
the power of confirming; the Mayor
has the power of presiding and of
vetoing. the Supervisors the power of
legislating and overriding the veto.
In response to the question as to |
what can officer" of the city might |
be, the speaker stated that he had not
gone into the details that far.
Supervisor Logan answered the
question, quoting a decision of the Su-
preme Court to the effect that an Off
Ger of a government was one whose |
Inf of OF t,,to In, h.a
case of the county he supposed the
duties would be defined by ordinance.
Mr.. Logan gave an explanation, as he
saw it, of the limited power of the
municipality. In the days of long
ago, he explained. there were three
great subjects in Hawaii; one, to get
street cars in Honolulu, and the other
two to get county government. 1t
was pretty generally recognized in
/ those days, however, even among
those who talked and wrote most about
it, that county government, so far, at
l least as providing for Mayor of Ho-
nolulu was concerned, was a glimmer-
ing impossibility because the Mayor
would be bigger man than the King.
No bigger man was wanted by the
powers that were. With the coming
of annexation, however, the people be-
gan to feel their oats as American
citizens and the clamor for county gov
|ernment was increased. 1t came, but
with the conditions here differing SO
radically from those elsewhere, and
with the wealth so unevenly distrib-
uted, full county government was
deemed inadvisable, while, in addition,
the old system of centralized govern.
ment died hard and relinquished only
what it absolutely had to. There
were good reasons yet why much of
the power should remain with the GEN.
trial government, and the fact that to
give the counties the power of taxa
ton and assessment would only dupli-
cate Offices, was good reason for not
giving it. n
County government was given as a
test to the electorate, and the munich
pal government now established was
in measure a try-out to test the ca
pacity of the voters. To 60 SOW in
granting powers was wise and sensi-
BILE course. The present system of tax
Al /