Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 264, 24 August 1891 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

"E Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono."

 

Ka Leo

John E. Bush

Luna Hooponopono a me

Puuku

 

Monday, August 24,1891

 

Discontent

 

I.

            The announcement that the "Charleston" is to visit Honolulu, en route to China to see if her presence is needed here and to discover the causes of discontent that exist among the natives, furnishes a text for comment and elucidation.

 

            The Bulletin and Advertiser strenuously deny that any discontent exists; but the Leo asserts that it has a lively existence, in every district, among the natives and working-classes, and recent action of the Queen and her cabinet have greatly aggravated the feeling.  And what has caused this state of feeling?  We will endeavor to present the case.

 

            As the Leo remarked at the time, the new Queenʻs reign opened with as bright a promise of peace and prosperity as the rain-bow that arched over the Palace when the Kingʻs body was landed from the "Charleston;" but up to the present time, the only results are a series of administrative blunders.  Her cabinet having failed to meet public favor, have assumed an insulting attitude toward the native people, and have handed both the Queen and the government over again to the missionary-planterʻs clique of unscrupulous politicians, and the future takes a threatening aspect.

 

            The primary cause of all present discontent existed before the Queenʻs accession.  The revolution of 1887 and the political campaigns that followed had developed, but only in a one-sided manner, the principles of popular government, "of the people, for the people, and by the people."  The election of 1890 brought two political parties into the field with well pronounced issues, and at the polls, the people, in exercise of one of their dearest right, gave a majority of their votes to the representatives of the "national" party. The chief features of this parties platform were, 1st. To put the reins of government into the hands of men representative of the people, not of royal favorites, revolutionists or monopolists; 2nd. To amend the Constitution, or to obtain a new one, the constitution of 1887 bring objectionable from its crudeness and the method by which it was obtained; and especially to eliminate the property qualification of voters which was avowedly created to deprive a majority of the native Hawaiians of their foots; 3rd. To obtain the removal of a certain number of officials in the government service who had been placed in power as rewards for revolutionary services, put whose arrogance and incompetence were an aggravation to the people; 4th. To recognize the rights of the Hawaiian born to preferment in the civil service; 5th. To obtain the speedy apportionment of the public lands into homesteads for bona-fide settlers and small farmers.

 

            The old cabinet was ousted, but the King instead of summoning a cabinet of national men, according to constitutional precedents in other lands, effected a compromise cabinet with a national member at its head; but this man turned out to be an egregious failure, and allowing himself to be misled by a treacherous and radically colleague, the cabinet soon appeared in hostile opposition to the national party, and as a consequence, were universally condemned by the people.  Upon the Kingʻs death and the Queenʻs accession, she appeared to accede to the almost universal wish of the native Hawaiian and of the national party, and in a struggle with the old cabinet succeeded in dismissing them and summoned as Premier, another Hawaiian who had appeared at a later hour as a representative Hawaiian.

            The composition of this new cabinet was a disappointment from the start, but it was cheerfully accepted by the people, who rejoiced in the belief that at last the National Party would be respected and considered.  But very soon the present Premier proved himself to be no better than his predecessor.  He had a false mascot in the shape of a fossilized Teuton, and now he is a complete and servile tool in the hands of the missionary sugar planters.  Furthermore he has so far forget his own origin as to brazenly utter his contempt for the native Hawaiians or their rights or interests.

 

II.

            The first capital error of the Queenʻs reign was the retention of the Privy Council of State, in which body that are many whose services are valueless by absence and others whose presence is a disgrace to the Crown.

            The Queenʻs second cardinal mistake was in the reappointment of the Board of Health, which is not officered agreeably to the natives, who are very sensitive about their national malady, and resent kneely the ruthless, oftentimes brutal and arbitrary manners in which some of the officials - the pets of the Board - on the other Islands, snatch away one of a family, as leper suspect, wherein many errors were made and personal spites are exercised, and allowed to remain uncorrected.

            Outside of the discontent sown by the open favoritism of the Queen for certain individuals and her dislike for others of her native subjects, Her Majesty has gradually weaned herself away from her people by ignoring their repeated requests and representation; by openly snubbing them, after junketing on their poor and reduced pittance, and by announcing her preference for alliance with and belief in the white missionary party, who have ever been hostile and fatal to the true interests of the native Hawaiian;  The poor kanaka feels his isolation keenly and says, auwe! we have now no Poo!  Our Queen has deserted us and is now the Queen of the white missionaries and sugar allies and we are their holoholona!  But the natives might still be loyal to the Queen if they could believe that she has merely been misguided by treacherous advisers, and that perhaps another election would give her more intelligent and capable men who will be more true to Queen, people and country.

                        To be continued.

 

Varieties

It is puzzling to me, what the tins, seized on the Port Surveyor's premises, will be found to contain after due sampling.  I am inclined to believe, that it will be oats and bran and hay.  That would make the presence of the tins in a feed house very plausible.

 

I hear that a great number of the hungries are hunting up their "influential friends" (ladies and gentlemen) to secure the necessary pulling to be considered, if the office of Port Surveyor becomes vacant.  I guess we will see a long proces-@ of carriages containing the "influentials" moving towards the ministerial residences and I will bet, that the ladies will carry the day.

 

But the Premier swears a bald oath, that no man with Hawaiian blood in his veins shall receive an appointment any more, as long as he is boss of the little leviathan of State.  He never did like his own race, and I imagine, that before long, he will learn that his race does not like him.

 

I see that little Dan is on the war path in last week's issues of that nondescript, the daily Bulletin.  Goodness gracious! I shall with pleasure admit that he is the most ancient journalist both here or in creation; but even if he sets his editorials in type himself, he must not be too positive that they are his independent productions. I see that he has hauled down the Bulletin's old motto:"Pledged to no sect or party." and I will suggest another for him, gratis:

Head the editorial column with these words; "Pledged heavily to the ministerial stockholders of this paper, to defend them through thick and thin and praise up all their actions and non-actions."

 

So the sugar barons are going to get washed sugar admitted free of duty.  What a jubilee we will now have!  Glory, glory, glory!  The country is safe.

 

I hear that a former proprietor of the S.F. Wasp, a paper famous for personalities was frothing the other day about a little rooster crowing while perched on Joe's "shoulders."  I am astonished that one who once performed the part            of a hymenopterous should fail to appreciate the effects of his own peculiar gift.

 

The cares of state have been weighing heavily on the broad shoulders of our learned brother the Attorney-General, so as a matter of fact he became invisible during the last jury term of the Supreme court, except on one or two days when he snarled at the bad, bad man of Ka Leo.  Now the cares of State - preparations for balls, luaus, etc. - have again fallen on Samuel's curly pate, and A. G. goes to work again.  So I judge from little Dan's report of the engine banquet, in which it is said that the combined eloquence of the ministers was made up in the few felicitous remarks by the A.G. "to the toast for the bar."  Very appropriate indeed and very spirited

Fiearo

 

Political Platforms

In reference to the article in last Saturday's Bulletin under the above heading, we wish to say that we have no quarrel with that paper and have no inclination to raise one.  If the Bulletin serves it proprietary by such tirades of balderdash as that contained in its column and a half of sneer at our contribution of good coin and bad English we can't help it.  We don't know of any sober argument that will avail to present an enraged man from putting his head against a stone wall if he is so determined, and such an exhibition of mental aberration is clearly illustrated when the Bulletin invited a comparison of our position with its own in the following language;

"Allowed to work its desperate and treacherous schemes unchallenged, it is as certain to involve the party in ruin as that a gangrenous limb will kill its possessor if not amputated."

At to the "gangrenous limb" the public know but too well that the politically palsied joints of the Bulletin equally with its daily contemporary, are held in position by the resin pitch and plaster of interested stockowners and advertisers, on which the welfare of the public never come in for a thought.  Take the recent fish cannery discussion in that journal as an illustration.  Does not every one in this community know that dear fish is the result of the existence of a human shark known as the Konohiki?  But there is not a word in all the Bulletin waste of type to indicate even the existence in our midst of the carnivorous relic of feudalism!

We are sorry for a journal that has to trim its sails, and part its hair so keenly in the middle in order to keep afloat.  The Bulletin will continue on the even tenor of its way learning nothing or knowing nothing of the social and political ills into which this country has drifted.

 

Bare-Footed Bill

 

The exploits of this genius, who has for months been keeping the public and police on the qui vie , were further exercised early on Sunday morning on the premises of Mr. Sach's store on Fort Street, where rumor says gentleman Bill, emptied the sack of ninety dollars.  At the International Hall, Bethel Street, this evening, the doings of Barefooted Bill will be presented in a farce which will last about forty minutes.  New dresses, scenery, local songs, and a sparkling dialogue together with good music are among the features of the evening; not forgetting iced lemonade, etc., free.  Tickets at Bookstores, 50c.  Reserved seats for ladies and their escorts on request from ticketsellers, no extra charge.

 

A Romance

the Paradise of the Pacific

or

The Devil's Kuleana

(Continued by Uncle Beke)

She looked very sweet and charming again and Nyama folded her in his arms and kissed her rose-bud mouth.  She lost her hold on her long robe and it fell about her feet, and when Nyama released her she tripped and might have fallen, but the young man picked her up in his strong arms and carried her on the veranda, the dress trailing behind on the ground, and set her down upon the bench.  He left her and went inside the house, and shewing the girl who had brought them there one of the tin cans signified his wish to open it.  She brought him a strong knife at once, and went and motioned for Faza to come inside and at the same time carried in the rest of the packages.

 

Then she spread a clean white cloth on the floor which was covered with spotless mating as houses are in Japan, and told the strangers to prepare their meal.  She gave them dishes and made some tea with water boiled over a fire out door, and added some mangoes and a pine apple to their repast.  The two miserable voyagers outside where fed, but were excluded from the house on account of their dirty state.  Nyama told them they had better take a wash after dinner, which they did.

 

Nyama and Faza sat on the floor as is the custom in their own country and enjoyed their meal immensely.  As their hunger was relieved Faza became very lively and talkative.  Not a word of complaint, of regret, or misgiving about the future did she utter, only cheerful, girlish, chatter about their experiences and the strange objects around them.  Nyama and she were here together, and she was twittering and coquetting to attract him to her as the birds do in the spring and as every girl does in the spring time of life.  Nyama was rather silent and thoughtful, but he devoured her with his eyes; and it was evident even to the native women that he was in love with his wife.  They sat and finished the last of the canned black-berries, and drank their tea and enjoyed a kind of picnic after all on their first day in Bowowee.

 

There were two middle-aged women in the room, very fat and very formless, and a young girl, a younger sister of the one who had come to the rescue of our friends.  She was just budding into womanhood and was very pretty and graceful, and looked as sweet and innocent as any maiden in the world with her pure while dress and her head bowed over her work.  The people all seemed content and prosperous. A great deal of clothing hung on the walls and a cupboard stood in one corner.  The women were making hats many of which could be seen on the wall trimmed with gay feathers.

 

After they had finished their meal the girl began to clear away the table.  Nyama thanked her for her kindness and asked her name.  She said it was Mary, modestly hanging her head.  Then Nyama asked her if they could stay there all night saying at the same time that he had money to pay their lodgings.  To his surprise he received a negative shake of the head.

 

"Why what is the matter? Don't you have plenty of rooms?" he inquired.

 

"To-night all the rooms engaged,"said she.

 

"Don't you have rooms up-stairs?" persisted the young man.

 

'Yes, plenty room up-stairs, but to-night somebody come'" she answered with her eyes on the floor.

 

"Who is coming? You can fix someplace for us, I am sure, if you try."

 

"No," she said looking up, "I can't, two white men come here to-night, sleep here with me and my sister; they no like anybody up-stairs." and she pointed to her sister and herself.                                                                                                                                              To be Continued.