New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-02-05
4 GOCEPNMENT FOR ia UAU.

While the Hawaiian delegates have been
iourneying across the continent pubic OPINION
has had plenty of time TO express nSeli as 70
the important matter they have in hand. Rare
" in our history has an affair of equal magni-
tudo been discussed with such entire freedom
from partisan feeling or on so exalted plane
of enlightened patriotism. The popular YER
dict is clear, uncquivocal and practically unani-
nous. Hawaii is welcome. Her sovereignty
will be received by the American people in
such form as will create content and assure
order and prosperity in the islands. The rest
is matter of detail, and. although it brings up
new questions and will almost certainly require
great changes in our foreign policy. the mere
devising of form of government for the
Hawaiian people cannot seriously cmbailass
practical statesmen Of the American type.
1t is fortunate that Mr.. Thur>ton and his
colleagues como with a mission so simple anu
direct. They are empowered to treat OF an
ncxation and OF nothing less. That conceded
as the basis of the negotiation, they have little
else to insist upon. They are ready to accept
a Territorial form of government. which means
practically, the rule of tho President asserted
through tho Interior Department and a Gov-
emOr and judiciary appointed at Washington
Tho precise measure of local self-rule which
nav be permitted to the people OF an American
Territory is fixed by statute. and may be much
or little. In Alaska it is almost nothing IN
Utah it is considerable In the case of Hawaii
il would be undoubtedly desirable TO exercise
a conservative judgment on this point, and
there is every reason to believe that the dele
gates will show themselves quito as con-
scrvative as we could wish.
There is a wide difference between the atti-
tude the United States would thus sustain to
Hawaii and that sustained by England to a
Crown colony, such, for instance, rs British
Guiana: and, although the measure Of local
self government permitted in each case might
be similar in that it was very little, there would
be no reason to anticipate the vexation and
jealousy in Hawaii against the United States
which mark the sentiment of the people OF
British Grown colonies so generally toward
their sovereign country. For not only is
Hawaii already thoroughly American while the
English colonies are generally anything except
English. but there would be in Washington
none of that reprcssive austerity which tho
British Colonial Office feels itself compelled to
manifest toward the distant lands it rules.
Englands difficulty in dealing with her colo
MES at least those that are in American waters,
proceeds mainly from the fact that neither has
a considerable material interest in the other,
and the authority imposed by the sovereign
produces, therefore, no compensation to the
subject
But an entirely different state of affairs will
prevail in Hawaii, and would in the Caribbean
islands if they belonged TO us. Hawaii will
be ruled from Washington, but according to
the elastic American principle which assumes
sef-govenment to be the ideal, and insists
upon a steady advancement toward that goal
as circumstances warrant. The governing cs
Establishment, too, will be as thoroughly Ia
waiian as the conditions in the group will
allow. and. above all, the political interest of
the islands will lodge in the same tenement
with their commercial interests. There need
be no fear, therefore, of friction between the
and the people of the continent, or
of serious difficulty in dcvising form of gov
ernment which will be satisfactory to both
parties. The real problem for us of Hawaiian
annexation appears not in the relations of the
islands to the Union, but in the new American
foreign policy which it must strongly operate
to bring about.