The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1898-03-11

would perhaps have prevented the
overthrow if he had not been hamper
ed, was not suited to her. Mr.. Will
son stopped or tried to stop the send
ing of clandestine messages to her,
while she was imprisoned, through
newspapers wrapped about flowers. She
became angry As her custodian
when she was released and parolled,
he kept his word, given to the Gov
eminent. This made her angry.
She says that her visit TO Washing
ton was made in order to secure the
rights of the native people. Though
she had abdicated, she was resolved to
work for her dear people, who per-
Sistently refused to ''pungle up" q cent
for her expenses, or furnish her the
price of nights lodging.
She tells her story, but makes the
reading between the lines very easy.
She played lone hand for herself.
We do not blame her. But she should
be more honest about it.
In summing up the story told in this
book, we believe that it is just that
foreign but largely by Polynesian
standards. She acted on racial habits
and instincts. She was not capable of,
no Polynesian is capable of, measuring
the foreign standards, of comprehend
ing the force and value OF political in
situations. Compared with many other
female soyereigns, she is perhaps equal
TO the average of them. Like them,
she was not selected by the people as
a leader, but became so by the acct
den of her birth. She is obstinate,
and suspicious She never had the
sense TO seek the advice of honest and
capable men. She possessed a pretty
little Kingdom, an ideal affair in the
singular harmony that existed between
the natives and the whites. She had
abundant income from it. The whites
did not stand aloof. Even father"
Beckwith urged loyalty to her from the
pulpit of the Central Union church.
The faults of King Kalakaua's rule
were forgotten. The rumors of her
lack of turn for permanent virtue,
were forgotten. All that was demand
ed of her was decent government. She
did not have sense enough TO see ii.
In this she shared, by inheritance the
defects of her brothers character. She
went too far. The whites demanded,
absolutely, stable government. In her
book she gives the best and most pow
erful reasons for her overthrow. She
undertakes seriously and solemnly to
hold the right of the Hawaiian Mon
archs 10 reject constitutions and give
others in their place. This is fatal to
any possibility of restoration. She has
driven the last nail into her political
coffin. Had she admitted her error,
and claimed that she was influenced
some sympathy from the friends of the
Republic
The ignorance of Mr.. Nordhoff, and
of the n. Y. Evening Post, and other
papers regarding the true condition of
things, led them TO cry out for the
enforcement of general principles of
political rule, which were tried and
found inapplicable here, just as other
political principles, just and reasonable
in themselves, are found inapplieable
in other countries. These persons saw
only an attempt to do an unjust thing.
The planting of better political rule
here, needed the protection of a mus
ket and bayonet, just as young tree
from the nursery requires the aid of
a post TO protect it from the storms,
until its roots strike out and pene-
trate the soil.
The chief value of this book is in
the argument she makes against her
own cause. She has done it better than
/ another could do it.
THE EDITOR.