Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 340, 8 December 1891 — Platform of Principle OF THE HAWAIIAN NATIONAL LIBERAL PARTY. [ARTICLE]

Platform of Principle OF THE HAWAIIAN NATIONAL LIBERAL PARTY.

INDEPENDENCE OF THE COUNTRY PRINCIPLE OF GOVERNMENT AND CONSTITUTION.

1.. We deem that all Government should be founded lon the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity; we hold that all men are born free and equal before the law and are endowed with inalienable rights to life, to liberty, to property, to the pursuit of happiness and to self-protection against arbitrary concentration of power, irresponsible wealth, and unfair competition. We believe that just government exists only by the consent of the People, and that, when it beeomes necessarv for the public welfare, they may abolish existing forms and establish more advantageous and equitable system; and, as the present Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom never has had the approval of the People, but was establisded bv mtimidation and fraud for the benefit of a certain class, therefore. we favor the adoption of a new and more liberal Constitution, to truly secure a Government of the People, by the People and for the People.

JUDICIARY REFORMS 2. Out of consideration for the inherent rights and present opinions of the native population, we desire to retain the independence of the Country and defend its autonomy, under a liberal and popular form of government; but our Treaties with Foreign Powers, and especially with the United States of America, should be revised, so as to better meet present necessities and to obtain more equitable advantages in exchange of those granted by us.

3. Our Judiciary system and Code of Procedure must be submitted to a thorough revision, so as to secure a cheap and prompt administration of justice,free of all sectarian or patisan spirit, and to render the Judges more directly responsible to the People; and we are in favor of a more liberal interpretation of Constitutional guarantees of the freedom of speech and the press. TAXATION 4. A more just and perfect system of Taxation must be inaugurated to abolish the present inequalities, by which the property the poor is excessively taxed, while much of the rich man's goods are under-valued for assessment or entirely escape taxation ; we shall therefore demand tthe passage of laws that will more effectually subject the property of corporations and rich citizens to their just proportion of public burdens, while granting more liberal exemptions to the poor; and as a means of discouraging the locking up of large tracts of uncultivated lands, a differential tax should be levied in addition to the usual assessment on valuation, which should be in proportion to the fertiiitv of the soil. We shall also favor the establishment of a graduated income tax and thus expect to obtain ample funds for conducting the government and attending to all necessary public improvemeets without any further calls on the masses.

5. We shall use our efforts to obtain laws by which all favoritism in the government and all monopolies, trusts and privileges to special classes shall be rendered impossible, by full, definite and mandatory statutes. 6. Better laws should regulate the Civil Service. The principle of the elecsion of officers of the government by the people should be established, and no man should be allowed to hold more than one office of profit, whilst salaries should be adequate compensation for the services rendered. All excessive salaries should be reduced and all sinecures or superfluous offices abolished. PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRIES 7. We are in favor of encouraging all home agriculture and industries, and all our native products, like rice, coffee, wool, tobacco, etc. should be protected and fostered by proper tariff regulation; and also it must be the duty of the Govment, in its contracts and other operations, to give preference to national products over imported ones.

PUBLIC SERVANTS. LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 8. We desire a more liberal policy towards the different Islands of the Kingdom, outside of Oahu; thev should receive a fairer proportion of the public moneys for the development of their resources and the satisfaction of their wants. In fact, the principle of local Self-government should be extended whereby giving localities may choose the most important of their local executive officers, aud levy taxes for the purpose local improvements of public nature. PROTECTION TO THE LABOURING CLASSES 9. We shall endorse all measure tending to improve the condition of the working classes; and consequently, without injuring any vested rights, we wiīl advocate laws to prevent all further importation or employment of contractlabor of any kind, upon conditions which will bring it into a ruinous and degrading competition with free Hawai ian or white labor. We shall also, in the interest of the better protection of the poor, ask for more liberal exemptions of their property from forced sale on execution, and from seizure in bankruptcy proceedinas. SMALL FARMING AND HOME STEADS. 10. The wealthy fraction of our population have hitherto prevented the develop ment of an independent class of citizens; the public lands have been acquired and have been tied up in a few hands or parcelled to suit favorites, and small farmers and planters have been driven out by corporations or combinations of capitalists; but as small farming is conducive to the stabilitv of the State, it should be encouraged by a new and more liberal Homestead act, by which the ownership of small tracts of land and the settlement thereon of families of our present population-and especialily of the native Hawaiians who have been left almost homeless in there cointry should be rendered possible. To that end, the Govemment and Crown lands, ( in so far as can be done withont invading vested rights ) should be devoted as soon as possible to homesteads and conferred upon bona-fide settlers free of taxes for a limited period. It should be the further aim of government to, at once, so far improve the means of transportation,—local, national and international, —as to provide, in all the districts, cheap means of conveying the product of the soil to market.

ELECTORAL RIGHT 11. We hold that upright and honest manhood, and not the possession of wealth, arbitrarily fixed, should consti the right to vote for nobles as well as representatives, and no more power should be accorded to the ballot ol the rich man than to the ballot of the poor man. The discrimination in favor of wealth now made in our Constitution is contrary to all the eternal principles of right and justice, and must be abolished. To this end, we will favor a leveling ot the present distinction of wealth and classes which blemish our laws with respect of the right to vote for nobles, thereby restoring to the native Hawaiians privileges which pertain to them in their own country, and of which they have been unjustly deprived. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 12 We favor the expenditure of sufficient sums to secure a number of needed public improvements on Oahu and other Islands, schools, railroads and harbors and wharves, public light, and also a thorough system of reservoirs and waterworks, not only for Honolulu, but through-out the other Islands.