Hawaii Prospers

Hawaii is more than a paradise in tropic seas. The boom of surf on coral reef, the fiery image of volcanic spray on cloudless night sky, flower-garlanded brown bodies lure U. S. tourists. But those mountainous islands are one with the U. S. in creating wealth from soil and industry. In the capital city, Honolulu, is a Stock and Bond Exchange where the securities of the Philippine Archipeligo's sugar plantations, public utilities, railways and pineapple canners are bought and sold, and where, significantly, are listed the foreign stocks and bonds of Sumatran and Philippine companies financed and owned by the prosperous Hawaiians.

Pearl Harbor, the great strategic naval base of the Pacific, has been erected at the crossroads of the ocean.* Ships from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Panama, Auckland in New Zealand, Sydney in New South Wales (Australia), Hong Kong, Yokohama, Manila arrive and set forth daily.

This commerce with the eastern and western worlds has brought prosperity to the islands. Last week's compilations of dividends declared for 1927 by 29 of the major Hawaiian corporations showed a total of $17,700,243 as compared with $14,788,000.for 1926. Most of the companies reporting paid dividends at rates of from 10% to 15%, while several concerns maintained rates of from 18% to 33%.

In August the islanders will commemorate their sesquicentennial, the 150th anniversary of the landing of Captain James Cook. From the small beginnings of civilization sown by that great navigator a flourishing community of more than 250,000 souls has developed. Eight of the nine islands are now inhabited.

Fat dividends have not nourished native usages. Last week Kuokoa, 67-year-old newspaper, was doomed to discontinuance.

The journal, printed with only twelve letters of the alphabet contrived by missionaries to crystallize a spoken language, once boasted securely the leading circulation of the islands. Now its sales lag wearily behind native strides in spoken and printed English.

*It was at Pearl Harbor that Edward L.

Doheny built oil storage tanks to contain fuel oil from the Elk Hills, Cal., field for naval consumption.