The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1883-02-24
Our Foreign Correspondence.
IRON OUR OWN coRREsPosDExr.l

49, @- H"&- 00NN -0N
named. The floods in Europe appealed to our
sympathies and purses for the relief Of sufferers by
kline and Danube overfows, but this was no
sooner done than the United States too found it
sell under water, in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New
York, the rivers became uncomfortably unmanag-
able, and the Union Pacific Railroad suffered from
stress Of weather would-be travellers suffering
even more. A terrific railroad accident at Teha-
chapi, q little station in Southern California, came
to swell the list of horrors in this instance a train
was left at the top of = steep grade al 8 O'Clock in
the morning without q proper arrangement of the
brakes a violent wind blew the cars down the
grade, they took fire and a score of sleeping pas
sengers were burned or smothered TO death.
Numerous Law suits threaten to grow out of the
accident, as the absence OF conductors and brake
men, at a time when their care might have pre-
vented the back sliding of the train, is thought
to have arisen through neglect of duty. A daring
train robbery in the Sierra Nevada mountains fol-
lowed, and the running down of the unfortunate
ship Cimbria in the fog off the German coasts by
the Sultan, also results in the prosecution of the
captain of the latter for manslaughter in Ham
burg. A crisis in French politics has followed
the deaths of Gambetta and General Chanzv.
Prince Jerome Bonaparte and the Orleans people
have been making themselves Objectionable, but
rapid changes of ministry seem to be the only seri-
Gus results of the Partisan feeling of uneasiness.
A war with Germany is not by any means the i'm
minent danger many exeitable prophets would like
to make it out, 1t is not toward glory in arms but
towards a secure and trustworthy government
that French ambition tends just at present. One
more disaster in the United States, and this the
last up to date, was the burning of the Newhal
House, a large hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
There was an immense loss of life. and incendlaries
were suspected, but thus far, no definite discoveries
baya baan made tbouOb ap,plova confessed ba
spent half an hour after discovering the fire, in
saving papers and valuabIes that he might have
spent in awaking the tenants of the building.
Hawaiian affairs at Washington have taken on a
new aspect under the Minority Report ubmitted
by the Honorable P. Belmont, representative from
New York, ON the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Charles J. Folger, the Secretary of the Treasury
laid before the committee an exhaustive re-
sumo OF his views on the effect commercially,
of the abrogation, also tables of statistic show
ing in detail not only the importation and
expectation for the year between the United
States and the Hawaiian Islands, but also the
quantity of sugar and molasses produced III the
State of Louisiana and the United States. In his
letter the Secretary dwelt upon the alleged high
scale of prices at which sugar was taken up and
consumed by the people ON the Western Slope of
the Continent scale higher than that of a like
quality of the article on the Eastern Slope, although
the West is SO much more readily accessible from
the Islands yet, he added, While the price is
greater at the West than at the East, the Eastern
merchant cannot offer his wares to consumer at
the West at as low q rate as his Western rival"
He then mentioned that the transit of the sugar
was longer from the Islands to the Eastern ports
while equally free from duty, and stated as a
recently-propounded fact that, to a buyer from the
United States, the price of sugar in the Islands is
made by adding to the value of it there a sum
equal to what would be the duty on 1t at one of
our ports where sugar is subject to our tariff-rates,
so that the duty he would have paid to the Govern
ment, he pays, in effect, to the seller ON the
Islands, so that the non-payment of duty on
sugar imported from Hawaii gives no adj
vantage to an importer OF it over importers
of the article from other places. The Secretary
also touched upon the favorable terms of carriage
for his wares, which enabled the Western man to
underbid, to some extent, dealers east of the
Missouri River, but stated that the department
was not aware that the success of the Western
dealer was in any great measure the effect of the
treaty, nor Of any complaint OF the operation Of
the treaty on the business of this country. Il
am not prepaid Mr.. Folger continued, to say
that it would beneficially affect the business in
terests of this country to abrogate the treaty
After the reading of this communication, the
House Foreign Affairs Committee authorized
Kassop, of Iowa, to report ia favor of retaining the
treaty, but in q modified form, whereupon Blount
and Belmont dissented from the report, the latter
remarking that the Treasury Department itself,
rather than the treaty, was on trial, for having
admitted, free of duty, sugars not contemplated
by the treaty. Mr.. KassOn offered the House a
resolution requesting the President to endeayor to
bring about a revision of the treaty to the
end that the clause relative to the in
PRODUCTION of Hawaiian muscovado. brown and
unrefned sugars free of duty, may be changed
to permit the character and grades of such
duty free sugars to be determined by their per-
centage of absolute fneness or Qualification, in
stead of the colOr-test standard, not, however, to
impair reciprocity. The Hon. Charles G. Williams,
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
House, said that the action of the committee in
regard to the modification of the treaty was de-
signed to bring the trade between the countries
within the scope of the original intention respect
ing it. There was reason to believe that extensive
frauds had been perpetrated on the government,
whereby high grades of sugar doctered to appear
of an inferior grade such as the treaty admitted
free of duty, had been brought in under the opera
ton of the treaty. The modification proposed by
the committee was to substitute the polariscopic
test for the color test, and in case the committee
fails in accomplishing this end, the President is
authorized to give notice to the Hawaiian Govern
ment of the abrogation of the treaty. 1t was dis
tinctly stated that the Treasury Department and
not the treaty was responsible for the frauds that
had been committed. Eastern sugar men were
dissatisfied with the committees report and as
serted that the President would not dare to assume
under the wording of the committees resolution,
authority to take steps to bring about the abroga-
ton of the treaty. Belmont then prepared and
filed his minority opinion, taking the groun1 that
there are serious objections to the interference of
Congress with the treaty-making power and show
ing that the evils complained of in connection with
the treaty are not due to its defects, but to in
competent and corrupt administering of the law by
Consular and customs officers. He asserted that evil
dence shows that under the treaty a colossal fraud
has been perpetrated against the revenue of the Go
yernment. He, too, submitted a resolution author
izing the President to institute inquiry into the
alleged frauds, and report the result to Congress
and suggested that notice TO the King of the Ha-
vaiian Islands respecting the wish of the United
States to terminate the treaty be withheld until
the President responds to the resolution of inquiry
to the question whether or not notice of termina-
ton given under an article like that in the Hawai-
ian Islands Treaty, is. primarily, an Executive
question. Incompetency and decentralization have,
according to Belmont, reigned supreme among
American officials in the Sandwich Islands, and
among the Customs officers where the sugars have
entered, for two-thirds of the importations of all
the sugar from the Sandwich Islands since the
treaty have been entered and passed in viola ton of
the treaty, and in fraud of the United States
49,, i q I1no4 fhnf ff 4hn aar-,,~4 /
officials were in the United States, both civil and
criminal proceedings could, and should, be brought
against them by the Government, and their fraudu-
lent appliances and practices prevented in the
future. Belmont concluded with q recommendation
to prosecute guilty diplomatic or consular officers of
the United States, and to begin civil proceedings
to forfeit sugars, and recover the value of any
sugars that have been entered at any Custom
house of the United States in violation of the
Customs. He also recommended that all further
action respecting notice to the King of the Ha-
waiian Islands of the wish of the United States
that the treaty be terminated, shall be postponed
until a message from the President shall have been
received by Congress in reply to the proposed re-
solutiOn- Secretary FolgeF Immediately requested