in favor of the original claim of the British Government to the enjoyment of privileges equal to those granted the United States. The controversy led to a change of ministry, and finally to an admission by the King's minister of the claim of this Government to exclusive privileges, and a pledge to hold the treaty, so interpreted, inviolate. This episode involved an "annexation scare" as against the United States, touching which Mr. Evarts thus instructed our minister, Mr. Comly, August 6, 1878:

You will endeavor to disabuse the minds of those who impute to the United States any idea of further projects beyond the present treaty. (Appendix.)

From time to time during the ensuing three years questions of interpretation of articles on the schedule and of the customs provisions of the treaty, and some involving attempted or apprehended frauds arose, several of them complicated by claims of Great Britain under the stipu lations of the Anglo-Hawaiian treaty of 1852, and by the influence of British residents. All these questions were, however, satisfactorily determined without resort to any other mode of arrangement than the usual diplomatic method, by notes. A domestic scandal, involving almost the entire Government, followed, resulting in rapid changes of ministers and a hasty request for the recall of foreign representatives, including Mr. Comly. This request was, however, itself recalled promptly after the last change of cabinet on account of this particular crisis, and a more agreeable state of affairs brought about. The details of these incidents are, however, hardly worthy of any notice, as they serve chiefly to establish the disreputable, character of certain of the King's advisers at the time, to verify charges of general corruption in the legislature, and point to influences at work against an extension of our reciprocity treaty.*

The same year the good offices of this Government were solicited by the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, in the suppression of the liquor traffic, by the enforcement of Chief Lebon's ordinance in the Ralik Islands. Mr. Evarts, on November 13, 1880, instructed Mr. Comly, and Mr. Dawson, the United States consul at Apia, also, to make efforts to secure some suitable person to act as consular agent of this Government in the Raliks. (Appendix.)

The good offices of this Government were enlisted also in the negotiation of a treaty between Hawaii and Japan, and its approval of such a convention sought by the king's minister for foreign affairs.

In June, 1881, Mr. Comly reported the persistent effort of Great Britain to derive benefit or advantage from the parity clause of the Anglo-Hawaiian treaty of 1852, through the reciprocity treaty with the United States, by way of pushing claims based upon that clause pending its termination by notification. He wrote:

I do not propose to trouble the Secretary of State with a repetition of my arguments intended to show the inadmissible character of this claim, and showing also that in 1855, when a reciprocal treaty with the United States was pending, the then British Commissioner here (Gen. Miller), acting under direct instructions from Lord Clarendon, literally "gave away" the whole case as to this present claim. He says: "Great Britain can not, as a matter of right, claim the same advantages for her trade, under the strict letter of the treaty of 1852." (Quoted more at length and in his own words in my dispatch No. 13.)

For the convenience of the Secretary of State I present a brief itinerary of the progress of this claim up to date, as I understand it:

1. Immediately after the reciprocity treaty went into effect, Maj. Wodehouse, the British Commissioner, peremptorily notified the Hawaiian Government that "Her Majesty's Government can not allow of" any discrimination against British products

* See Mr. Comly's 113, 121, and 122; and Mr. Evart's 76 and 78.

as in favor of American, and that British importers would claim under their treaty, for British products, equality with American products, under the American reciprocity treaty. A long diplomatic correspondence followed, in which I was frequently consulted in a friendly way by the Hawaiian minister, and was notified from time to time by Maj. Wodehouse of his proceedings. I have uniformly insisted that it would be a violation of the reciprocity treaty to allow the same privileges to British or any other products with those of the United States-privileges purchased by reciprocity advantages beyond the power of any other nation to concede. I have also insisted that it would amount to a violation of the sovereignty of this Kingdom for Great Britain to assume to dictate to the Hawaiian Government what differential rate of customs should be levied upon British goods as compared with those of other countries, taxation being an incident of sovereignty.

2. Finding that the British Government insisted upon its claim, the Hawaiian Government gave one year's notice (under the seventeenth article), terminating the fourth, fifth, and sixth articles of the Anglo-Hawaiian treaty of 1851-52. (This would take effect July 3, 1878.)

3. This was resented by the British Government as "unfriendly" action.

4. Mr. Henry A. P. Carter was sent as Hawaiian envoy to England to settle the dispute. Major Wodehouse, alarmed by threats of annexation to the United States rather than submit to the demands of Great Britain, accompanied Mr. Carter to San Francisco, where he applied for and received telegraphic leave from Lord Derby to proceed to England with Mr. Carter.

5. In London Lord Derby proposed to Mr. Carter that England would drop the whole matter if the Hawaiian Government would withdraw its denuuciation of the fourth, fifth, and sixth articles, and would attach the free schedule of the American treaty to an agreement that none of the articles in that schedule should be taxed more than 10 per cent if British product rejected. (My dispatch No. 43 is full on this and subsequent points.)

6. The notice of discontinuance was withdrawn as to all but first paragraph of fourth article.

7. In legislative assembly of 1878, a large and noisy party of British sympathizers attacked the Government severely and threatened the reciprocity treaty so seriously that I wrote a note of warning and protest to the minister of foreign affairs (appears as inclosure No. 4 with my dispatch No. 43) which was subsequently approved by Mr. Evarts Secretary of State.

8. The Hawaiian treaty was amended substantially as suggested by Lord Derby (10 per cent ad valorem horizontal). It was supposed that this would end the matter of the British Claims, but

9. About the beginning of the present year, Mr. Theo. H. Davies, acting British consul-general, a merchant doing large business here and one of the claimants, wrote (unofficially) to the minister of finance on behalf of the claimants, demanding a refund of duties paid under protest pending the termination of the first clause in the fourth article of the British treaty.

10. The minister of finance referred the claimants to the Hawaiian courts.

11. The British commissioner then made official demand for diplomatic (executive) settlement.

12. The Hawaiian mininister informed Major Wodehouse that he would lay the matter before cabinet council.

The minister of foreign affairs informed Major Wodehouse that the action of the minister of finance was sustained by cabinet council, and that the claimants were remanded to the courts accordingly.

14. Major Wodehouse replied that he could not accept that form and would report to his Government for further instructions.

15. The Hawaiian minister wrote a brief note, simply acknowledging Major Wodehouse's note without comment.

16. Major Wodehouse wrote a severe reply, complaining that the Hawaiian minister had omitted to say that he would give due consideration to Major Wodehouse's note, or words to that effect.

17. I am informed by a member of the cabinet that the minister (Mr. Green) will make a brief and dignified protest against the tone of Major Wodehouse's note, and will say (substantially) that, Major W. having been already fully notified that the matter had been considered by His Majesty's Government and the claimants referred to the courts, and he himself having notified the Hawaiian Government that he had referred the matter to the British secretary, then, in that case, there was nothing further to consider at present, and Major Wodehouse's complaint was without foundation.

Here the matter rests.

This dispatch drew from Mr. Blaine, June 30, 1881, an explicit instruction setting forth the views of this Government as to the impossi

bility of a grant by the Hawaiian Government of any of the privileges exclusively given the United States by the treaty of 1875 without a violation of that treaty. He said:

You will add that, if any other power should deem it proper to employ undue influence upon the Hawaiian Government to persuade or compel action in derogation of this treaty, the Government of the United States will not be unobservant of its rights and interests and will be neither unwilling nor unprepared to support the Hawaiian Government in the faithful discharge of its treaty obligations. (Appendix.)

The revival of the subject of coolie immigration from British India and an expression of the views of the British commissioner at Honolulu respecting the means by which such immigration should be promoted and such immigrants protected and controlled, together with a resuscitation, by Major Wodehouse, of the Lackawanna incident, and the adhesive character of the British claims arising from the reciprocity treaty, were together the moving cause of considerable correspondence designed to instruct the United States minister very fully respecting the established and continued policy of this Government. On December 1, 1881, Mr. Blaine said:

It [this Government] firmly believes that the position of the Hawaiian Islands as the key to the dominion of the American Pacific demands their benevolent neutrality, to which end it will earnestly coöperate with the native Government. And if, through any cause, the maintenance of such a position of benevolent neutrality should be found by Hawaii to be impracticable, this Government would then unhesitatingly meet the altered situation by seeking an avowedly American solution for the grave issues presented. (Appendix.)

* ** *

In 1883 the Government of the United States was invited to concur in a protest by the Hawaiian Government against the extension of their respective territories by Great Britain and France in Polynesia, by annexation of the New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, and adjacent groups. Mr. Frelinghuysen on December 6, 1883, declined to concur, because, as he wrote, "while we could not view with complacency any movement tending to the extinction of the national life of the intimately connected commonwealths of the Northern Pacific, the attitude of this Government towards the distant outlying groups of Polynesia is necessarily different;" and he added that the President "does not regard the matter as one calling for the interposition of the United States, either to oppose or support the suggested measure." (Appendix.)

In the same year the reciprocity treaty between the United States and Hawaii reached the limit of its duration, subject to twelve months' notice from either power to the other of its desire to terminate the compact. Negotiations looking to the extension of this agreement were set on foot by the Hawaiian Government and the project was discussed in Congress and in the diplomatic correspondence with the ultimate result of a convention of renewal, etc., concluded December 6, 1884, at Washington, in three articles, of which Article I renewed the treaty for a period of seven years and Articles II and III provided, respectively:

ARTICLE II.

His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands grants to the Government of the United States the exclusive right to enter the harbor of Pearl River, in the Island of Oahu, and to establish and maintain there a coaling and repair station for the use of vessels of the United States, and to that end the United States may improve the entrance to said harbor and do all other things needful to the purpose aforesaid.

ARTICLE III.

The present convention shall be ratified and the ratifications exchanged at Washington as soon as possible.

The convention was not however ratified and proclaimed until November, 1887, owing to considerable opposition to the extension of the original compact by the sugar interests of this country and further discussion of the subject in Congress. The extension of the treaty and the Pearl River Harbor cession were also opposed by Great Britain as the general policy of that Government. (Appendix.)

In May, 1873, Gen. Schofield, under confidential instructions from the Secretary of War, made a full report upon the value of Pearl River Harbor as a coaling and repair station, recommending its acquisition, and later he appeared before a committee of the House of Representatives to urge the importance of some measure looking to the control of the Sandwich Islands by the United States. (Appendix.)

The question of connecting the islands by cable with Australia and the United States was presented to this Government by our minister in August, 1884, by his report of proposals of the Australasian Cable Syndicate in relation to the laying of an ocean cable from Brisbane to San Francisco, via Honolulu. This syndicate secured the introduction and passage of an act by the Hawaiian legislature providing a subsidy of not more than $20,000 for a period limited to fifteen years. Owing to the failure to secure landing privileges at San Francisco before 1886 this act was then amended so as to provide for the landing of the cable at any other port or place on the North American continent, presumably in the interest of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's telegraphic system. While the sentiment in the islands favored a terminus in the United States, the project of Mr. Coote, a British subject, was a terminus in British Columbia. Further legislation on the subject drew from the British commissioner a protest against the granting of exclusive privileges to any persons for the landing of a cable from any British territory on any of the Hawaiian Islands and the assertion on the part of the King's Government of their right to control the matter as they believed best. In 1891-'92 a cable survey was made by the U. S. S. Albatross, of the Fish Commission, and lines of sounding were run from the Californian coast, Salinas Landing, Monterey Bay, to Honolulu. In 1886 a bill was passed by the legislature and approved by the King to negotiate a loan of $2,000,000 and pledge the revenues of the Kingdom for its repayment. An English syndicate had the matter in charge. Its objects were the liquidation of certain outstanding bonds and the prosecution of domestic improvements. The loan under such conditions was successfully opposed by this Government under the exclusive privileges granted the United States by the reciprocity treaty. (Appendix.)

Early in 1887 the subject of a proposed treaty of political alliance or confederation between the Hawaiian and Samoan Kings was brought to the attention of this Government with a view to its advice and its approval of the project; but Mr. Bayard pointed out the inexpediency of such a compact and withheld approval. (Appendix.)

On the 23d of December, 1887, the minister of Great Britain at Washington handed the following memorandum to Mr. Bayard:

WASHINGTON, December 23, 1887.

England and France by the convention of November 28, 1843, are bound to consider the Sandwich Islands as an independent state and never to take possession, either directly or under the title of a protectorate or any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed.

The best way to secure this object would, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, be that the powers chiefly interested in the trade of the Pacific should join in making a formal declaration similar to that of 1843 above alluded to, and that the

United States Government should, with England and Germany, guarantee the neutrality and equal accessibility of the islands and their harbors to the ships of all nations without preference.

To this communication Mr. Bayard replied:

PERSONAL.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, February 15, 1888.

DEAR SIR LIONEL: After reading the memorandum of Lord Salisbury in relation to the Sandwich Islands, it does not occur to me that I can add anything to what I stated to you orally in our interview on the 23d of December last, when you first sent it to me.

I was glad to find that you quite understood and had conveyed to your Government the only significance and meaning of the Pearl Harbor concession by the Hawaiian Government, as provided in the late treaty of that Government with the United States, and that it contained nothing to impair the political sovereignty of Hawaii.

The existing treaties of the United States and Hawaii create, as you are aware, special and important reciprocities, to which the present material prosperity of Hawaii may be said to owe its existence, and by one of the articles the cession of any part of the Hawaiian territory to any other government without the consent of the United States is inhibited.

In view of such existing arrangements it does not seem needful for the United States to join with other governments in their guaranties to secure the neutrality of Hawaiian territory, nor to provide for that equal accessibility of all nations to those. ports which now exists.

I am, etc.,

T. F. BAYARD.

The direct and immediate motive of Great Britain in this correspondence is not evident; but it is obviously to be discovered in certain closely anterior events, sufficiently well known at the time. But a little while before an understanding had been reached between England and Germany relative to a division of a great area of the Pacific Ocean; the attitude then lately assumed by this Government respecting Samoan affairs had perhaps been the cause of some surprise and, it may be, a little apprehension in this direction on the part of Her Majesty's Government, and the frankness with which we shall see the British consulgeneral in Hawaii cautioning the King's Government against any exclusive concession of a naval station to any foreign power is no less useful a key to the action of Sir Lionel West. The causes, then, of this step were complicated; jealousy of the United States led to the inclusion of this Government in a project for an agreement prompted by jealousy of Germany, and France was relegated to the convention of 1843 by force of more pressing circumstances.

While Mr. Bayard, in February, 1888, was writing his answer to Sir Lionel, the British commissioner at Honolulu, formally protested against the grant to the United States of the exclusive use of Pearl River Harbor as a coaling and repair station, by Article II of the supplementary convention extending our reciprocity treaty, and argued that the Hawaiian Government was estopped from this action by the provisions of Article II of the King's treaty with Great Britain, granting to vessels of war liberty of entry to all harbors to which such ships of other nations “are or may be permitted to come." And he said:

Under instructions from Her Majesty's Government I have already pointed out to the Government of His Hawaiian Majesty that the acquisition by a foreign power of a harbor, or preferential concession in the Hawaiian Islands, would infallibly lead to the loss of the independence of the islands; but this consideration has not prevented His Hawaiian Majesty's Government from proceeding to the ratification of the supplementary convention with the United States, and although Her Majesty's Government are informed that by an exchange of notes between the Hawaiian minister at Washington and Mr. Bayard it is declared that the article in question S. Rep. 227————–53,