Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 125, 9 February 1891 — Those Condolence Meetings. [ARTICLE]

Those Condolence Meetings.

Epitob ..RriiLKTix — For onee your i l)'Ußtrio(is conteniDf>rary, the P. (•. was right when he said , in his isBue ot yesterday, that it was l4 unfortunate" that therefihon!d liave heen a laek of unanimity 011 the part of our r citizens, in the matter of the puhlie nieetings of ♦con<lolence. But in this morni!ig's Advertiser, Mr. W. li. Cast!e is wrong, as lie always is in all his 7)oliticiil eflfusiotiB, when he asBunies i.hat the regrettable fact of there having heen two separate rneetings on tho same objeet was a mere aenāeni. In eifect, these two meetings liave heen to a!lintents, class meetings, the one at t'ne Armory reV)resenting the people. the masses, the other only an attempt to eall om the wealthy. That this impressiou is correct, and the only <ine possibie, is detnonstrated by simp!y perusing the list of namee «f the inea who called the two meetinge: the one at the Armory was oalled out by nine elected Kepre#ieatatives of thc People and 21 l>opular Hawaiians, members of ihe Gentral (yomnaitec, whilst thc names of the starters of the other oieeting suggest the fo!lowing marks:lst: —that the gentlemen of Kaumakapiii Churrh, all of then) 7 beiong to one Part v, thc old Rel'orm one, of unpopu!ar remembrance, for even Ilon. S. Parker was never a part of the National l*arty, except in eoalkiun against the present Ministry, and Hon. A. Rosa hau long aioee ceased to belong to that Party, if h.e is to be judged bv his acts in the Legislature. (Jonscquently, the ouly admissible inference, and perfeetly well W!ider3tood bw U>© puhlie. ia that Ihiii church meeting was intended from the start to l>e a one sided affair ©f one only of our politicāl partief>: if unanimity had really heen desired and eought for, the <'allißg comittee o»ght to have been formed of an about equal number of men of both parties , 2dly.—that the most conspicuous names of this cotnmittee were preciselv those of men who made theinselves most proniinent, onlv a eouple of vears ago,~in Hrying to detlirone that late Monarch. for wh«se loss tlu'y now want to expreps so niueh sorrow and regrct , sueh a selection eān therefore be justlv termed most unfortunate and ni.us't have produced a verv strange and strong iinpression 011 tho native populalion, who are ju.«t as shrew<l as the foreign eleuienl ; odly,—t!iat auiong these nanies, the llawaiian element is retnarkablv thiu; n©w, it cannot be gainsaid that 4 here, on the ILiwaiianaoi 1 , the inanifestrttions ofsorrow fV»r at; Hawaiiai. Kovoreign, imght te eome prinupallv and in a niarked \v«y, froin the native po* pulalion, not fro:n foreigners, and in a !ike inanner it is from the nalives sj>eeially and that tlianks onght to l>e issued to tlie generons of California and to the Aineric;ui A«ltnir:«l an l orticers. f»vr their kind and unrelenting attentions. JU»t pn oisely, among the c:«lU'rs «>t the Kaumakapili ehureh. the native niemi»ers are not onlv notablv absent, but tliose few who nre on the list, are noted for tbeir utter unpopularitv aaiong the i»atives, so that trotn thi» alone the inipre?sion : en.uveyed t,. th" p'ihiio i> that the Kaun a-

kapili meet ng \va& intended to be and muFt be a strictly American (lpirionstration, got up liere by the Aineiiean olemenl, in favor of the people of Galifor»ia. The 2reat miptake, therefore, made I>y the nianij)ulators of the church meetir.g was to have thus given their meeting a one-sided political an<l Hoeiai appearence, and to have, —nurposely or inadvortent!y/—ignore<l those men of the native element. as is shown by the suocess of their meetmg, in spite of the inclemency of ihe weather, Thuf? a splendid oeeaaion for harmony, unanirnity and good» will has becn lost, a unique oeeasion for burying our political hatchets, and. better than any one else, M-K W. R. Castle must know who is to be blam?d for this unfortunate u accident. M J. E. B.