The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1921-04-08
NOT n PRETTY PICTURE

By no means edifying is the sight of a scrambe to secure legisa-
tive appropriations both from the loan fund bill and the appropriation
measures, general and special. 1t presents the spectacle OF a wild grab
bling to get a much of the public funds and of the public credit IS may
be secured instead of a dignihed effort to enact laws and to meet the
actual needs OF territorial expenditure. Little regard is paid to relative
proportions or a fair division and in using the territorial credit for coun-
V improvements there is an utter absence of the ordinary business eau
ton that would be used in borrowing upon ones own property.
N1o, e .,,o,4 90 L,--,u:,o 80 DtlEr crod;+ e vyoId ,nnoar to
ordinary citizen is quite ready to mortgage the county property for pr-
poses for which he would never consent to place a lien upon his own
Vdual and the community seek to secure improvements tor which they
would never vote a bonding of the county at a ~pebische.
Instances are easy to find. Would any one dream so wildly as to
picture the voters of Honolulu bonding the city and county property to
build a $25OOM swimming pool even for a war memorial? Hardly.
Ballots would bury it.
Can the County of Hawaii be pictured as voting a bond issue of
$4,000 for a county fair? Yet the iILo board of trade coony proposes
to ask that sum from the legislature. The mere fact that the Hawaii
proportion of assessed valuation and Of taxes paid is only a little more
than a fifth of the whole does not Cor does iO enter into their cacula-
tons. They would have the taxpayers of the rest of the territory fur
nish them with about four-hfths OF their needs for a fair.
the loan fund and the school budget bills, meaning that the county gets
more than its proportion of appropriations in both of them, in crude
gets appropriations for hospitals instead OF building its own while Maui
levies a special county tax for hospitals and sanitarium support. Truly
a contrast in the spirit of independence manifested by the two counties!
1t would seem that in advance of each session it might be deter
mined how much is to be raised by taxes and how much is to be borrow
ed. The costs OF territorial government could be deducted from the
amount to be raised by taxation and the balance pro rated among the
several counties in proportion to the taxes that each county pays. The
school monies could be similarly apporioned.
A. to loan fund appropriations the amount available under the
credit of the territory could be determined and pro rated according to
assessed valuation. No county should be permitted to exceed its just
share on that basis but if any county did not use such share the proper
ton not required should be permitted to accumulate for future years,
1or the use OF that particular county. In such manner there would be
lnstlled into the counties that need it a sense of proportions, a spirit
of independence, a just understanding of the public credit and the ex-
travagence that is engendered by the feeling that a county is getting a
gift from the rest of the territory to be spent as it wills would give
way to something like the care that the businessman exercises in his
own affairs and the voter exercises in protecting the integrity of the
property in the home county.
In other words, the constituents in the various counties would act
like well brought up adults instead of like 5 many greedy little children.