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through the artesian basins. The closing of this area will not 
burden anyone with an unjust hardship, and I am confident that 
lime will prove the benefits to be derived by this wise precaution. 
Not Only Trails Involved 
The objections to this rule have all been confined to the closing 
of the trails across the area, as you have been constantly in- 
formed by the headlines, "A Plea for Mountain Trails." Please 
bear in mind, however, that Rule V is not confined to any par- 
ticular trails, but embraces a forest area of 1,480 acres in the 
high mountain slopes at the head of Palolo and Manoa Valleys, 
a city watershed, on which certain trails happen unfortunately 
to exist. This rule is not directed against any particular trail, 
but is intended, as a measure for the public welfare, to protect 
the forest on the whole watershed. Unless the entire area is 
closed, the exercise of the established personal right of citizens 
to travel on any and all parts of the area may and will be en- 
joyed just as freely as on the public highway. In other words, 
the rule proposes to give better protection to a forest area on 
the city watershed and is not confined to a strip of vegetation 
along any trail. So long as the whole area is open to the 
public, all parts of it will be subject to forest disturbance by 
human beings, w^hich results in detriment to the delicate forest 
and it is this that the rule seeks to terminate. 
Few Objections to the Rule 
In the discussions of this rule, strenuous and organized efforts 
have been made to discredit the rule and to minimize the dam- 
age, now going on, which the rule seeks to prevent. These 
appear to be prompted either by selfish personal motives, in the 
desire to keep the trails open for tramping, or by a surprising 
lack of sympathetic and intelligent understanding of city water 
supply sanitation and of the forest situation which exists on 
the area. The objectors do not seem to have given the whole 
situation serious consideration nor to have weighed all of the 
factors involved and struck a proper balance on the side of safety. 
It perhaps may not be reasonable to expect this of them, since 
most of them have resided in these islands only for a compara- 
tively short period, and of course have not had the opportunity 
to learn from personal observation just how delicate the Hawaiian 
forest is and how sensitively it reacts to outside interference. 
Against the dozen or so who object to the rule merely on 
selfish grounds, there are hundreds who understand the purpose 
of the rule, realize its necessity for 'public reasons, and urge its 
immediate promulgation. 
