The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1904-09-02
f. THE RECIPROCITY TREATY.

! I'm connection with the =. g. Jones in
terview. about the safe tenure of tbs
old Reciprocity treaty. merits furthei
! discussion. It is Mr.. Twins belief thai
Congress would have retained the
treaty so as to hold the islands, and II
this position Is well taken 1t deprives
MIR. Jones argument Of much of its
strength.
But In the Advertisers view Mr.. irwin
undertakes the force OF the movement
which gathered a vast following in
1875, TO rescind the measure that gave
Hawaiian sugar free entrance to the
American market. Mr. Jones has
shown that the policy of abrogation
was approved by both parties. The
Democrats of the Senate were for it al
most to a man, Senator Morgan being
the only conspicuous opponent CT that
faith in the upper house. As for the
Republican Senators, they caucused on
the subject and passed resolution in
favor of the abrogation of the treaty.
waiian sugar planters rightly looked
upon as menacing 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
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 its sphere of
influence, American supremacy was
fixed beyond the power of local irri-
tation to impair it. The world accept
ed the new status of the islands and as
early as 1895 Great Britain refused to
send a warship 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
jects 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
It's lnsular vantage ground, and the
assent of the old world chancellories,
he Washington government could not
nave been rebuffed by dissatisfied
planters here. Furthermore, most of
he planters would have chosen to bear
he ills they had, rather than to fly to
others they knew not of. Those who !
we're Americans might have been count !,
ID on for loyalty and hope of recon- |
alteration of their claims at some flu
ure time. Those who We're not Ameri- |
ans could have made no Roadway in ,
my scheme to identify Hawaii's inter- !
sts with those of European power.
1t is the profound conviction of this
,aper that but for annexation the his
DRY of Jamaica would have had it's
here-not in all its details
,ut assuredly in loss of prosperity.