The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-01-29
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
THURSDAY, 90.
"This hint was sufficient for my son Moses"
U-.u- E WoLo6or5

4 III nIL hdS euhlCAGAs VI "S SOA AZ"
Vicar Of Wakefed.
IT has been the policy of the Hawaiian Ministry for
the past ten years to surround our risi5 g nationality
with as thick q network of treaty encumbrances as
could be brought into operation. This has been done
under the plea that it would only strengthen the
kingdom and give it q name and character abroad.
The general tendency of treaties is, no doubt, to bring
about this result, provided that q treaty is not origin
ated until q necessity for it exists. But without
waiting for a necessity to arise, the policy of the
Minister of Foreign Relations has been to concoct a
treaty with any and every power whenever an oPpor-
,unitu occurs, without waiting for the necessity for
such treaty. The result of this hasty policy has been
that we find ourselves completely hedged in, and our
laws infringe on rights incautiOusly coded away, or
such treaties are found to render inefficient the whole
some laws of the land. Hence have arisen the vcxa-
tious l~itigations in the Supreme Court for the past
two years on the subject of duties.
The basis of all modern treaties is to place each
nation and its subjects on the same footing with every
other, giving no exclusive privileges to either. Hence
any privilege granted by tresty to any one nation
can be and are claimed by all others. It is only on
this ground of parity that in a late case before the
Supreme Court, a British subject claimed, the British
Commissioner selected and the Hawaiian Government
approved of a consular jury. The case was not one of
life and death, nor one involving any penal forfeit,
but was merely one of privilege. We say the case
involved no penalty, for no judge of our courts would
have imposed any penalty, when it was generally
understood that the decision involved merely a ques-
ton of right and privilege.
We have rarely met in the space of one and a half
columns, such a mixture of trash, nonsense and full
some egotism as appears in the last POlynesiGn,
over the decidedly bombastic signature of We THE
PEOPLE OF ENGLAND" 1t evidently emanates from
& One of the jury who finding that jury or some of
them standing in rather hot water, prefers the above
title which is intended, we suppose, to be understood
as emanating by authority from behind the curtain.
The writer observes
"I must therefore, as a foreigner, protest against
my Consul giving up the privilege of selecting a jury
to try me, for if the system here is such that l am
liable to be tried for my life by a clique from whom I
differ so entirely in first principles, sentiment and
feeling, [ should be afraid to stay in the country
there is no knowing how soon they might hang mes
The newspaper quoted from, as well as its CORES
pondent, appear to take it for granted that the Brit
ish Commissioner is only exercising one Of the func-
tionS of has office when choosing a jury for the trial
of one of his countrymen. Let us inquire how British
subjects came to acquire this right, and whether citi-
zens of the United States and Germany and other
nations have not as good a right as they to be tried
by jury1nen selected by their commissioners or con-
suls, and to sit in juries after they have been sc
chosen. AT the present time Frenchmen derive the
right in question from the third article of the treaty
of 1916, which is TRANSLATED y
"ARTIcLE 3-No Frenchman accused of any crime whatever
than by a jury composed of native or foreign residents PROPOSE
by the French Consul, and accepted by the Government of the
Sandwich Islands,"
Capt. La Place has the credit of originating this
article, which he introduced into a treaty enforced
by him at the lannon's mouth, in the year 1889, anG
to secure the stric observance of which he demanded
and took away the sum of $4,000. Rumor, how
ever, gives the credit of the article to people residing
on shore. There was an English treaty made il
1916 of the same character as the French, professedl,
for the purpose of placing both nations upon al
equal footing in the islands, and these continued t
be the rule fr action until 1851, when the British
Government superseded theirs by a treaty similar t.
the one made with the United States, and which con
tanned no provision relating to jury trials. Sine
that time more than six years have rolled away, il
hourly expectation that the Kings Minister of For
eign Relations would bring forth into the world
new treaty with France, as liberal at least as that Q
her ally of the Crimea but all hope of that event
now fully extinguished, and we seem destined to liv
on from year to year without a change for the better
Although the British Government have by treaty re
linquished the right of her Consul to select juries, an
have placed their subjects upon precisely the sam
footing as citizens of the United States in this PAL
ticular, the British people have not abandoned thei
claim to enjoy the privilege of such juries, nor thei
Consul the right to select them nor do the Hawaiia
authorities as at present constituted, show themselve
any way inclined to resist the claim-with gres
facility granting to the British Consul the right
select juries, in cases, even, where there is no Grim
charged-only a m~isdemeanor perhaps, or, as in
recent case in a nea0 question Of general public cor
Germ and interest, not a crime under the statute, nc
exposing the life or liberty of a British subject in an
way whatever.
The only ground of this claim is "parity''@"N
are as good as Frenchmen and will enjoy the san
privileges quoth the subjects of Her Britain
Majesty. Is it not time, then, for the citizens of IL
Republic of the United States, and citizens of Ge
many, to make their declaration, "We are as goo
as both of you and viii enjoy equal privileges.
Americans and Germans are q law abiding peopl
. They sustain, at all times, the authorities of the cou1
tries where they reside. This has been remarkab
the case In these Islands from the earliest time
where they comprize nearly if not quite three-fourtl
of the American or European foreign population, an,
at the present time, if the granting of this privile,