The Liberal, Volume I, Number 43, 8 February 1893 — Untitled [ARTICLE]

ONE of the objections made to the Provisional Government is that there is no native in it. Heretofore when a cabinet was formed or a vacancy in the civil service to fill there had to be a native in it. The native has been in everything. The effect has been very beneficial to the particular natives who were in it, but not advantageous to the majority of the race who were our of it, nor to the country at large. This is an age of progress. The Provisional Government is working so well without a native in it, that the fact is likely to be recognized shortly, that the native, like the mouse in the chowder, is not an essential ingredient. The sight of the Government being caarried on without the aid of a single native will help the native people to get a better idea of their own importance than they have heretofore had. Instead of the everlasting "native in it," I propose a new principle, to wit; when there is an opening, let us have an American in it! SERIOUSLY, what native in the land has the slightest claim to a share in the new Government? All the royalists and native politicians concerned in the attempt to set up a native despotism, the avowed enemies of reform, are out of the question. The respectable natives who have been identified with the Reform Party, are merely tools of the wealthy planters and the necessity of using them having passed, the planters can better represent themselves. There remain Bush and Wilcox, the only natives who have worked for good government and had the courage to stand up against the aggressions of the throne. Bush having fought right nobly for the PRINCIPLE in the legislature, had withdrawn in a pet when the PRINCIPLE failed. Wilcox refused to join the movements, but has maintained a studied neutrality. This being the case what native has any claim or qualification to be a member of the new Government. SOME people have conjectured that the paragraph concerning the exchange of Savings Bank accounts for Government bonds was inspired. Four columns of the advertising on the subject is enough to inspire with financial genius the most impecunious editor. I wrote with the amiable desire to fix things so that our Uncle Sam would have to pay the bill, as he is so well able to do. The United States will in all probability assume the bonded indebtedness of the Hawaiian Government. That it will pay the Postal Savings Bank accounts is by no means certain. So that it is better for the Government and its creditirs that the indebtednes be in the forin of bonds. The LIBERAL prides itself on having given the monied

people a pointer as to how to make a net profit out of the political changes that are imminent. The Postal Savings Bank was a very good idea; but it cannot be called a good idea to take and spend the money as fast as it came in and trust to luck for means to repay it as was done after the bank was established. At one time the bank was in a very shaky condition, and I promptly advised my readers of the fact, hereby recuring for myself the regard of the then existing Government, which afterward displayed itself in various little amenities. The honor of having preserved the Government credit belongs largely to Waiter Hill, Post Master General, who, before the present Minister of Finance came into office, by his own exertions secured bonds and raised money on them to meet the withdrawals from the bank.

THE OCCUPATION of Hawaii by U.S. troops looks like a case of indecent haste. If Uncle Sam is going to take the country, he ought not to gobble it up as if he were afraid it would escape him. We expect him to observe the rules of good society, control his appetite, and not bolt these little islands whole, as if he were suffering for territory. We hope he will take them, nevertheless, and that the choice lot of kanakas, Chinese, Japanese, and Mongrels may He easy on his stomach and not exceed his boasted powers of assimilation. There was nothing in the internal condition of the country to require the protectorate. The Provisional Government was firmly established. It had friends and forces enough to protect it. Perfect quiet prevailed throughout the country. No foreign enemies were in sight. So the need of foreign protection was in no way apparent. The official phrase "for protection of life and property" was obviously a legal notion, or, more plainly, sheer humbug. The only conceivable advantage of such a course would be to get in ahead of other nations whose war vessels may be shortly expected. On the other hand, the Provisional Government has given its enemies a chance to accuse it of being anxious to dispose of the independence of the country at all hazards and without the consent of the people.

THE establishment of the protectorate is unsatisfactory in one respect. It threw a number of worthy men out of employment. The revolution was a godsend to many people out of work. The Drei Hundred had been boycotted and persecuted for two years and most of those who had not left the country were destitute. They shouldered their guns to fight for bread as much any thing else. While the guard was maintained they had very congenial employment and good pay. Who will say they had not earned it? It was a great disappointment to them to have the United States step in and take the bread out of their mouths. It is no slight matter to be in Honolulu without employment as times are. It is not much consolation to be told that the country is entering on a course of great prosperity and to wait a year or two.

OF COURSE it is not the policy of the new Government to make any general changes in the civil service. The gentlemen of the Government do not believe in the spoils system. Nevertheless they have consented to supercede a corrupt government, and seem fairly comfortable in office. If they pursue their course to its logical conclusion they are bound to remove every official under suspicion of corruption and every offensive partisan of the defunct monarchy. The country has waited long for a thorough housecleaning and it will not be satisfied till the last barnacle is scraped off. Many administrations have been wrecked because, they did not wish to make any changes. The latest example of this was the so-called Wilcox Cabinet, more appropriately the Brown Cabinet, in whom the people had so much confidence. It promised to be a Mahope cabinet which did not satisfy the cabinet makers. The idea of cherishing one's enemies, strengthening them to propitiate them, while alienating one's friends and keeping them down, is not one that will succeed in politics or business, not to mention the fundamental wrongness of the thing.