The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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In Spite Of The Notoriously Bad Effect Of Alcohol In The
Tropics, People Drink Hard, And The Number Of Deaths Which Can Be
Distinctly Traced To Spirit Drinking Is Quite Startling.
The prohibition on selling liquor to natives is the subject of
incessant discussions and "interpellations" in the national
legislature.
Probably all the natives agree in regarding it as a
badge of the "inferiority of colour;" but I have been told generally
that the most intelligent and thoughtful among them are in favour of
its continuance, on the ground that if additional facilities for
drinking were afforded, the decrease in the population would be
accelerated. In the printed "Parliamentary Proceedings," I see that
petitions are constantly presented praying that the distillation of
spirits may be declared free, while a few are in favour of "total
prohibition." Another prayer is "that Hawaiians may have the same
privileges as white people in buying and drinking spirituous
liquors."
A bill to repeal the invidious distinction was brought into the
legislature not long since; but the influence of the descendants of
the missionaries and of an influential part of the white community
is so strongly against spirit drinking, as well as against the sale
of drink to the natives, that the law remains on the Statute-book.
The tone in which it was discussed is well indicated by the language
of Kalakaua, the present king's rival: "The restrictions imposed by
this law do the people no good, but rather harm; for instead of
inculcating the principles of honour, they teach them to steal
behind the bar, the stable, and the closet, where they may be
sheltered from the eyes of the law.
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