The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-07-15
Continued from Third bage.)

1t may be said that Protectorate
will meet all the conditions, and that
without the difficulties (Which it isl
granted are many or any disadvantage,
we may reap all the advantages of
union This is not true as regards the
commercial situation. 1t will give no
such new vigor to the Islands as will
react to. our advantage or to theirs
and still less is it true from the military
point of view. 1t would doubtless be
difficult to fortify and defend so re-
mote a coast; but let the necessity
arise under our ProteCtorate that Great |
Britain should possess that harbor. and
we must fortify and defend it as thor
oughly as if it belonged to us altogether
and we must do 1t without the internal
control and previous possession which
alone would make it possible. Notice
one point, moreover. Within a few
months England, Germany, Spain, |
Japan, and possibly France, have each |
of them seized an island in the Pacific. |
Another and much more desirable
island offers itself to us, and we hesitate
to take it, and preier-some of us-to
keep it neutral. We seem to be the
only nation in the world that prefers
neighbors to citizens in important
military points We have learned
nothing from the spectacle of Spain
with Gibraltar to keep her gates, nor
from our own sore spot on the Atlantic
coast Bermuda.
We do not always realize how con
Stantly the policy of the Government
has tended toward annexation, and how
perpetual has been the desire on the
part of the Islanders themselves for
this as an ultimate result. 1t is a very
new idea probably born largely Of un-
restrained corruption) that makes these
natives, to any considerable extent,
object to the plan. No one can read
the pamphlet recently issued by the
State Department containing most of
the State papers on the subject without
realizing that it has been simply a ques
ton of time, from the beginning. We
have put it off as long as we Can-the
time has come. In the full catalogue
OF State papers on the Sandwich
Islands it is astonishing to find how
many relate to annexation in one form
or another The point is seriously
discussed in IS43, and in 1850 it takes
definite shape. From that time it has
never been out of the mind in our
diplomacy. Webster, Rives, Calhoun,
Marcy, Clayton, Evarts, Blaine-all our
Secretaries discuss it with the various
ministers, and all our Presidents cor,
slider it. Without considering in dItaiI
the extremely interesting facts of which
even a summary is too long for s,ch
an article as this, we may SUM ,o tba
results In just fifty year, ,h.n from,
I843 to 1893, we find y $50 -
ProtectOrate over II - e.
1,;th nc. too intimate rel 'tions
ne md proposition to cede them to
Fir .er Polk; a deed of session under
.nmore; an unratified treaty of an
nexation under Pierce; propositions for
treaties under Lincoln and Johnson
and Grant, all of whom were in favor
of such action; favorable consideration
of the matter under Garfield; another
refusal of a Protectorate by Cleveland;
further favorable consideration and
treaty by Harrison. 1t would seem to
be somewhat unhistorical to call this
last action hasty.
Two kinds of a proteCtorate are
proposed, the first that of dis
tinCtively American responsibility
without distinct American control
is the plan first imagined by SeCre-
tary Webster, in IS43, which we have
attempted to carry out ever since. 1t
is plan which to-day in the altered
condition of the Islands, and with the
increased facility of communication,
and in view of coming complications
in the Pacific, seems to have little to
recommend it. 1t is, moreover, no
longer possible since neither power I
character inheres in the native govern
ment any longer. But another plan is
now proposed-that of joint protec-
torate, making the Sandwich Islands
neutral anu ItGC. MS II DIdIllCdlID
the same power which Webster and
President Tyler refused in IS43, and
when, in 1874, during Grants Admin
istration, on the occasion of the death
of King Lunalillo, the British Com
missioner to Hawaii proposed to j in
with the American Minister in protect,
ing the Islands, the American finds the
services of the British unnecessary, and
is commended therefor Still later,
when in S87 Sir Lionel West proposed,
on behalf of his Government to Presi
dent Cleveland, just this guaranty Of
neutrality and an open port which is
now proposed on behalf of England,
France and the United States, Score
tary Bayard fatty refused on account oil
our prior and paramount rights there
1t is this plan, also, which is now In
oDeratiOn in Samoa, even to the extent