The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-03-28

DdpcIb ACCCANCo NOheAJ DAAho
the very satisfactory news that the
Senate has passed a bill looking to the
construction of an American cable Il
connect San Francisco directly with
the Sandwich Islands. 1t is not sc
satisfactory to learn that so many as
twenty-five Senators were found to
vote against a measure to which cir
cumstances have now given the
Rravest national Importance. From
the summary of the proceedings in the
Senate on Saturday, which reached US
here today, something uncomfortably
like an organized attempt seems to
have been made to befog and confuse
the very plain and simple question of
the importance of an independent
American cable connection with the
key OF the North Pacific by mixing it
up with platitudes and palaver about
the self-imposed mission of sundry
British Members of Parliament and
volunteer dipIomatists, who appear to
have crossed the Atlantic for the pur-
pose OF airing before the Foreign
Affairs Committee their views and
visions on international arbitration.
There is certainly no natural legiti-
mate connection between the emil
nently practical question Of q cable
connecting San Francisco with Homo
lulu and the eminently theoretical
question of the feasibility of settling
all sorts and kinds Of international
difficulties by referring them to arbi-
tration. Mr.. w. Randall Cremer,
NJ. P. the not very important con-
stituency of Haggerston, appears to
believe that the millennium can be
secured il only Great Britain and the
United States will bind themselves to
submit all conflicts of interest and all
issues involving national honor and
prestige, which may at any time arise
between them, to arbitration, and,
believing this, he seems to have pre-
sented himself in Washington, armed
with o petition inviting the Congress
of the United States to get up some
plan for bringing about between Great
Britain and the United States an ar
rangement TO be modelled probably on
lines like those of the wonderful
scheme which was adopted by the
Washington ia April, 1850, but which
has since passed, 1 fear, out of the
minds and memory even OF the excel
lent people who adopted it.
There is probably nothing new in
Mr.. Cremer's interesting panacea of
peace, which embodies the collective
output of all the philanthropic activ-
ity represented by Mr.. Louis Apple
toms Arbitration Society, founded in
1856; and / grieve to infer from an
allusion made in the New York des-
patches of the London press that diff
ferences have arisen over his mission
between himself and respectful
member of Congress from New York,
Mr.. Van Voorhis, which may posi-
bly, prefgure such a battle royal as
ragged around Garibalui among the
apostles of arbitration assembled at
Geneva in September, 1867.
But why should Democratic Sen
ators like Mr.. Gray Of Delaware,
Cremer, III. P, and the prophets of
international arbitration" by setting
up an orchestral outburst of protests
against ga great war with England"
when another Democratic Senator, of
large experience in connection with
our foreign affairs, Mr.. Morgan of
Alabama, enforced upon the Senate
the immediate practical Importance
of an American cable TO the Sandwich
Islands by dwelling upon the perfectly
notorious fact that the British Gov
eminent has long desired to secure
control of naval and coaling facilities
in the Sandwich Islands, aud the fact !
not less obvious, though less notori. |
Gus, that to leave the cable communi- |
cations between the Sandwich Islands |
and the Pacific coast of the United |
States under the control of British !
authority in British America would |
be to make Great Britain and not the |
United States virtually paramount in |
IT..
which are undeniably the /
key of the North Pacific.
When two men ride upon one horse |
one of the two must certainly ride be-
hind. Is Mr.. Gray content that in |
the matter Of the control, commercial, |
naval, and political, of the North Pa
cif1c, which bathes the shores of the
American Union from Alaska to
Southern California, the United States
should ride behind Great Britain ?
And is Mr.. Gray possessed of infoTma-
ion a. to the plans aud purposes of
he British Government, or of persons
and sydicates of influence in England,
which leads him to believe that Great
Britain, rather than permit the
United States to hold their natural |
position Of primacy in the North Pa
,ific, is ready to plunge into "a great
var" with the United States Is there
10 mlOule term between maintaining
he rights and protecting the Interests
# the United States in the Pacific,
md plunging into ga great war" with
treat Britain?
II no such middle term could be
ound, practical and sensible Ameri-
ans, think, would accept the alter
native Of the "gTeat war" 1t would
be the height of folly for the
United States TO preclude themselves
~ a treaty of arbitration from enforc-
ng their rights and maintaining their
interests by ga great war" should the
Of Great Britain in subor-
Iinating the rights and interests or all
ther nations to what the late Profess
or Seely calls "the extension of Eng {
and" take the form OF a serious at ;
empt to convert the Sandwich ISL .
nds into halfway house of British