Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 402, 3 March 1892 — 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.

Thursday, March 3, 1892.

 

In the Supreme Court of the Hawaiian Islands

Chong Chum

vs

The Kohala Sugar Company

In Banco

BY THE COURT

 

It seems to us that the vice of the whole transaction now before us lies in the fact that the "special residence permit" was not tendered to the plaintiff in China before he started on his voyage to this Kingdom. He had no oppoortanity of informing himself of the conditions upon which he would be allowed to proceed to Hawaii and of consenting to them of ret@ing to proceed under them. The passport which contained the conditions upon which he was to be permitted to enter this kingdom was obtained for the plaintiff in Honolulu and his name inserted therein on his arrival at Mahukona, Hawaii, at the time of its presentation to the customs officer for his entry into this Kingdom. This was allowed by the Act of 1890 Chapter 67, Section 3, But in our opinion it has defeated itself. While adhering to the opinion expressed by the Justices of the Supreme Court to the Legislature on the 5th of November 1890 that this kingdom has the right to impose such conditions and restrictions upon the entry of aliens (with whose nations this kindgom has no treaty to the contrary) into the territory of this kingdom as the Legislature deems essential to the welfare, peace and safety of this state, it is vital to the binding effect of these conditions upon the alien immigrant that he should have notice of them before he starts on his voyage to this kingdom. We are still of the opinion that it would be no infraction of the constitution to impose conditions as to the length of residence and character of the employment in which the immigrant can engage, to which he must assent before being permitted to enter this kingdom.

 

It seems to be admitted that the character of the employment was known and consented to by the plaintiff in this case, and that he was to labor under contract for three years. But the conditions in the 4th subdivision of the first section of the Act of 1890 as to retention of one-fourth of the wages of the immigrant to be deposited in the treasury until it reaches the sum of seventy-five dollars as a fund from which to defray the immigrant's passage back to China, etc. is in our opinion unconstitutional @@ interfering with the liberty of the person and his right of enjoying and possessing property, and is not within the police power of the State. It may be said that it is the @@@ which the stage @@ @@ @@@@ture from the Kingdom of the immigrant after the term of his @@mitted residence has expired.

 

But if the continuance of the individual in this Kingdom after the specified term is considered by the Legislature to be obnoxious and dangerous to the state it must provide the means of his deportation. It would be unwarrantable interference with the right of the individual to make him pay an artbitrary sum from his own wages to get him out of the country into which he has been invited, he having done nothing criminal meanwhile.

 

But we based our assent to the decree in this case on the position that the plaintiff has come to this country without the provisions as to deduction of wages as a condition of his entry within having been made to him, and therefore they are not binding upon him he is therefore free from this obligation of the contract made under it.

 

This condition is separable from the other parts of the Act and it does not become necessary now to pass upon the constitutionality of the whole act.

 

It is noticeble that the matter of retention of wages of the immigrant as prescribed by the fourth subdivision of the Act of 1890 was not made the subject of inquiry by the Legislature to this Court.

 

Decree affirmed and demurrer overruled.

A.S. Hartwell for the plaintiff.

W.R. Castle and F.M. Hatch for the defendant.

Honolulu Feb. 26. 1982.

 

--

 

I agree with the conclusions of the court, under the reasoning of the decision appealed from.

SANDFORD B. DOLE

Honolulu, Feb 26, 1892

 

A NEW ASSOCIATION

 

At a preliminary meeting held by workingmen last Tuesday evening, it was resolved that a further gathering should be held the following evening, when an effort will be made to form a Workingman's Association. This decision is due to the "alarming development and aggressiveness of the power of great capitalists and corporations under the present industrial system." The mechanics here as elsewhere feel the necessity of forming unions for self protection.

 

The call for the organization of a permanent institution among the laboring men here is apparent. The tendency of the age is toward selfishness and greed, and just as soon as a man becomes a capitalists, no matter how small, like the shark, he  commences to prey on his fellows. Individual effort is out of the question. It is only by union and cooperation that the laboring man would be enabled to protect himself from pauperism and degradation. As things are tending the human family is drifting back to the degradation that existed in dark ages instead of to that blessed period called the millenium at a time where there are only two classes the rich and poor, the tyrant and slave.

 

It is imperative that every honest man desirous of enjoying the rights and blessings which is his birthday should unite and withstand this @@@ @@@@ for evil. All @@@ @@@@ throughout the @@@@ @@@ wish labouring @@@@ and @@@@.

 

OVER POPULATION

Subscription lists enable the unemployed to get out of the kingdom; are the order of the day. A few thousand idle, hungry men are known to be a danger to the wealthy class.

 

The capitalistic employer is wise in his generation and therefore observes certain signs of the times. It is certain, however, that in the Legislature, this same plutocratic class will yell out their standard periodical cry for LABOR. The Legislature of 1892 will in all probability respond, as all previous Legislature here have responded, to the cry of the planter for LABOR, cheap labor. The very life of the country will depend on cheaper labou from Japan or India, and the government would be called upon to import coolies for the planters, and the usual vote of money "to assist Immigration" will be asked for.

 

The consolation for the poor working population which remain is that they will have the capitalistic march of civilization unhindered. There will remain the konohiki and the beef trust and the milk trust and the exchange trust and the whiskey trust and the landlord and the planters trades union and labor supply trust, whose riches will keep on increasing side by side with the spread of the workers poverty.

 

The effectiveness of emigration as a safety-valve may be overestimated by the capitalist. They will remain here to ride the storm through-the best and bravest of the industrial population, and they will insist on more just economic conditions for themselves and their civilization. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of rich land here unused, and the very man who could reap from the golden harvests of national wealth are hurrying out of the country. The policy of letting everything slide is the only one known to our administrators. We are catering a commercial cyclone, the severity of which could be vastly mitigated if we had any brains at the head of our affairs; but instead we have the torper of the Mussleman who shift the blame of ALLAH or sugar.

 

BALLOT REFORM

While the law of election on our statute book is by far the best that has been ever introduced here, there are still many defects in it, which should be corrected in order to make it perfect and give to a satisfactory system of voting to the people. The aim of the law is to give perfect freedom to the voter, and the right to those entitled to the franchise. This has been secured as far as it is possible, in man's fallable, feeble way, but there are many loopholes whereby a perversion of the intent of the law may be made, as was done by the appointment of inspectors of election whose minds were so warped by party feelings that they could not do right under any circumstance.

 

ON DIT

That the steerage of our outgoing steamers are crowded each time which suits the sugar-baron just now. The time may come when he will wish that the poor mechanic whom he is so willing to force out of employment and out of the country, were here. That the object of the capitalist having been accomplished, they are now willing to pay the passages out of the country, of those whom they have impoverished.

 

That Huntsman is too "personal" so says the Advertiser, to suit itself and readers, while in fact the dislike lies in Huntsman's being too truthfull.

 

That some one has libelled the New York Life Insurance Company, and COB is very anxious to get at his necktie.

 

That there are thirteen gentlemen, thirteen ladies, and eleven misses, at the tourists luau last Saturday.

 

That there is no reason for this unseemly haste to help the poor man out of the country, unless it is the fear that the necessities of the poor will force them to disregard law and order.

 

That some people are beginning to think past the Liberal Party leaders, that the late treaty "offered the U.S. Government, was a "bubble", a "farce" and was of no value to the country whatever.

 

That President Harrison is aware that the Hawaiian Sugar Planters goes to Asia for labor to Germany and England for machinery and to Uncle Sam for a bounty to support him.

 

That the hula kui and condiments the poaki and hue, were particularly entertaining to our tourist friends fandango, highland fling, horn pipe. this dish is a mixture of the and the can-can, well shaken together. This part of the tourists, entertainments makes their visit to Hawaii complete.

 

 

Platform of Principle

of the

HAWAIIAN NATIONAL LIBERAL PARTY

PRINCIPLE OF GOVERNMENT AND CONSTITUTION

1. We deem that all Government should be founded on 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 becomes necessary 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 established by intimidation 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.

INDEPENDENCE OF THE COUNTRY

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.

MONOPOLIES

5. We shall use our efforts to obtain laws by which all favoritism in the government and all monopolies, trusts and priveleges to special classes shall be rendered impossible by full, definite and mandatory statutes.

PROTECTION TO HOME INDUSTRIES

7. We are in favor of encouraging @@ 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 Government, in its contracts and other operations, to give preferences to national products over imported ones.

LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT

8. We desire a more liberal policy towards the different Islands of the Kingdom outside of Oahu; they should receive 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, and levy taxes for the purpose local improvements of a public nature.

PUBLIC SERVANTS

6. Better laws should regulate the Civil Service. The principle of the erection 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 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 will advocate laws to prevent all further importation or employment of contract -labor of any kind upon conditions which will bring it into a ruinous and degrading competition with free Hawaiian or white labor. We shall also, in the interest of the better protection of the poor, ask for more liberal exemption of their property from forced sale on execution and from seizure in bankruptcy proceeding.

SMALL FARMING AND HOMESTEADS

10. The wealthy fraction of our population have hithetro prevented the development of an independent class of citizens; the public lands have been acquired and have been tied up in a few hands or paralleled 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 stability 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 especially of the native Hawaiians who have been left almost homeless in there country-should be rendered possible. To that end, the Government and Crownlands, (in so far as can be done without 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 districts, cheap means of conveying the product of the soil to market.

ELECTORAL RIGHT

11. We held that upright and honest manhood, and not the possession of wealth, arbitrarily fixed, should constitute the right to vote for nobles as well as representatives, and no more power should be recorded to the ballot of 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 of 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

13. We favor the expenditure of sufficient @ume to secure a number of needed public improvements in Oahu and other islands; school railroads and harbors and wharves, public light and @@@ a thorough system of @@@ and water works, not only for Honolulu, but through-out the other Islands.