The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-11-20
t H Z
HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS IN ENGLAND.

We recently published a letter which
appeared in the London Times over
the signature of Mr.. A Hoffnung, Ha-
waiian Charge d'Affaires at London,
commenting upon an article in that
paper in which it was announced that
considerable progress had been made,
through the Colonial Office in Downing
street, in negotiating a Treaty of Trade
and Reciprocity between the Hawaiian
Kingdom and the Dominion of Canada.
Mr. Hofnung denied the accuracy of
this statement, and remarked in effect
that negotiations to this end could not
be said to have been seriously con-
sidered. This denial, however, left the
matter of policy or intention on the part
of this Government in doubt, and was
therefore in our judgment incomplete
and unsatisfactory.
And now comes Mr.. II. K. Armstrong,
a gentleman whose name has recently
figured very prominently in Hawaiian
financial proposals, and who has the
honor of representing this country as
Consul General for England. He writes
which we print below. 1t will be no.
ticed that he does not add to the
weight of his opinion by a disclosure
of his official position. This, however,
is not material, as it is doubtless well
known in financial and commercial cir
cles in England. That fact renders his
declaration Of opinion and policy all the
more important to this country. But
for his official relation to the Hawaiian
Government, Mr.. Armstrong; opinion
would not be worth noticing in this con-
nection. AS it is, we are bound to notice
it, and to declare that in our judgment
it is unwise, impolitic and, to put it
mildly, rather crude.
Mr.. Armstrong intimates through the
Times" in as strong language as could
well be used, that the people of this
Kingdom, ''be they traders or planters"
are favorable to the abrogation of the
Reciprocity Treaty with the United
States, (which, they maintain, has re-
tarded the extension of their export
trade" This we declare to be an absO-
lutte Justification of public opinion in this
country, and it cannot fail to work injury
to these Islands in the United States,
which is their nearest export market and
source of import supply. Mr.. Armstrong
may have been told that the abrogatiOn
of the Treaty, although a thing to be
avoided if possible, would not wholly
destroy the commerce of the Islands,
and that possible market for our sugar
might be found in Canada. This may
have induced him to believe that the in
habitants of these Islands were anxious
to make trial of an uncertainty for GER
tainty, and TO cut off connection with a
consuming population of sixty millions
of people for at most five millions, nearly
all of whom could be as well and as
cheaply supplied with sugar from the
West Indies and the Clyde as from
Honolulu. To bear unavoidable mis-
fortune with equanimity is one thing; to
calmly invoke ruin and bankruptcy is
wholly different thing, This last is what
our planters and traders are represented
by Mr.. II. r. Armstrong as doing.
If Mr.. Armstrong had referred to the
statistics of Hawaiian commerce, he
would not have made the ridiculous
statement that the Reciprocity Treaty
with the United States retarded the ex-
tension of our export trade. 1t has in
creased sugar production ninefold since
1876, and increased the export trade at
least tenfoId. And yet Mr.. Armstrong
was fully armed with these statistics,
and should therefore have known that
his statement was in direct conflict with
the facts.
But the concluding sentences OF the !
letter in question exhibit a looseness OF
thought and expression that cannot be |.
too strongly condemned. He says that
the consideration of the renewal of the /
Treaty by the United States Government /
has been practically postponed for three [
years, during which period it will remain .
in force Who told him so? Upon what
authority does he make such a state
mentP Manifestly Mr.. Armstrong dur
iog his short sojourn in this country and