The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-09-02
THE RECIPROCITY TREATY.

THE RECIPROCITY TREATY.
The MAR, point which Mr.. Irwin raise:
in connection with the P. c. Jones in
terview, about the safe tenure of tht
old Reciprocity treaty, merits furthe'
discussion 1t is M. Twins belief thai
Congress would have retained the
treaty SO as to hold the islands; and il
this position is well taken it deprives
Mr.. Jones argument of much of its
strength.
But in the Advertisers view Mr. Irwin
undertakes the force of the movement
which gathered vast following in
lss7-S, to rescind the measure that gave
Hawaiian sugar free entrance to the
American market. Mr.. Jones has
shown that the policy of abt'ogation
was approved by both parties. The
Democrats of the Senate We're for it al
most to a man, Senator Morgan being
the only conspicuous opponent of that
faith in the upper house. AS for the
Republican Senators, they caucused on
the subject and passed a resolution in
favor of the abrogation of the treaty.
Here was a condition which the Ha-
waiian sugsr planters rightly looked
upon as nenacing and which the or
gans of the sugar trust, notably Mr..
Spreckels' Call, naturally interpreted as
a sentence of death to the great island
Industry. And not only the organs of
the trust rejoiced, but the beet sugar
growers in twenty States and the cane
growers in three-a body exercising
great political power under the guild
ance of the trust-jubilantly declared
that the Reciprocity treaty had come to
its last days. They were ready to fight
it at the first sign of reviving life.
What could have saved the treaty? |
Mr.. Irwin thinks the Government would |
have preserved the measure so as not |
to lose its grip on the islands. But |
why should there have been any such |
loss? Time was when American SUI
premacy here had been, a matter of
doubt. but the doubt had gone long
before 1898. Treaty or no treaty, when |
the United States served notice on the /
powers, particularly on Japan, that Ha-
wall had been taken within it's sphere of |
influence, American supremacy was /
fixed beyond the power of local irri-
fation toN impair it. The world accept
ed the new status of the islands and as
early as 1895 Great Britain refused to
send a warsaip here to look after the
rights of British subjects who had been
arrested by the Hawaiian Government
for political offenses, saying through
its spokesman in the Commons that
the interests of Her Majesty's SUBJ
jecIs in Hawaii were safe in the hands
OF the United States The point is
that Hawaii had gone virtually under
an American protectorate and that the
abrogation of the Reciprocity treaty
could not have changed that status.
Having the power and purpose to Keep
its insular vantage ground, and the
assent of the old world chancellories,
the Washington government could not
have been rebuffed by dissatisfied
planters here. Furthermore, most of
the planters would have chosen to bear
The ills they had, rather than to fly TO
Others they knew not of. Those who
were Americans might have been count
ed on for loyalty and hope of recon-
Sheraton of their claims at some fu-
ture time. Those who were not Ameri-
cans could have made no Roadway in
any scheme to identify Hawaii's inter
ests with those of a European power
1t is the profound conviction of this
paper that but for annexation the his
tory of Jamaica would have had its
counterpart here-not in all its details
but assuredly in loss of prosperity.
---H