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THE 
 
 POLITICAL VALUE 
 
 HAWAIIAN RECIPROCITY TREATY 
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 c,j«<^^>oc:o 
 
 At this late stage of the debate on the Hawaiian Reci- 
 procity Treaty of 1875, it is unnecessary to enter into any 
 statistical details respecting its operation as a commercial 
 convention. The subject has been fully discussed, and it is 
 conceded by its advocates that the advantages, in a financial 
 point of view, have been and still are with the Hawaiian 
 Kingdom, even after the most liberal concessions have been 
 granted by its opponents. It is therefore necessary to refe^* 
 now to its political value to the United States, and ask the 
 question "Is it wise policy foe the American Govern- 
 ment TO TERMINATE IT AT THE PEESENT TIME ? " 
 
 During the pa&t few years there has been an extraordinary 
 and growing desire on the part of European Powers to ac- 
 quire territorial possessions in the Pacific Ocean, which may 
 be plainly termed an ** annexation fever," and this desire ap- 
 pears to be increasing rather than subsiding. The recent 
 contention for the possession of the Island of New Guinea, 
 lying near Australia, raised by the Australian Colonies and 
 England with Germany will not be forgotten^ Though th© 
 question is not yet definitely settled, it will probably be done 
 amicably by a partition of the Island among the claimants. 
 France, already possessed of the Society Islands and New 
 Caledonia, now lays claim to one or two of the Hebrides 
 Islands, and some of the still more important islands of the 
 
 ivil52377 
 
[ 2 ] 
 
 group west of Tahiti, known as the Leeward Isles, to say 
 nothing of the large island of Madagascar in the Indian 
 Ocean, peopled with four millious of natives. 
 
 The recent half -suppressed emeute between Spain and 
 Germany, relative to the ownership of the Caroline Islands 
 in the Central Pacific, which excited an angry war-like spirit 
 on the part of the Spanish people, and was settled by the ar- 
 bitration of the Pope, will be remembered by all. The Caro- 
 lines were awarded to Spain, while the German flag will pro- 
 tect the Marshall Islands. Both these groups lie about 2000 
 miles west of Hawaii, in the North Pacific- Germany is also 
 understood to have taken the initial steps, which will result 
 in a "protectorate" of Samoa. 
 
 The outline map of the Pacific Ocean which accompanies 
 this pamplet will illustrate better than anything else the re- 
 lative position of the various harbors and islands now in the 
 possession of European Naval Powers, and also show the 
 central and wonderfully strategic position occupied by 
 Hawaii, which is the nearest land to the American coast. 
 
 The possessions of Great Britain are the following : the 
 continent of Australia, including the magnificent harbors of 
 Sydney and Melbourne ; New Zealand, with its fine harbor 
 of Auckland, part of New Guinea, and the Fiji Group, with 
 its cluster of 200 islands, — all the foregoing being in the 
 South Pacific. She also holds Hongkong and Singapore on 
 the Asiatic coast, and Victoria on the American coast — in all 
 at least eight or ten naval stations of great natural strength 
 and importance. The acquisition by her of Hawaii would 
 render almost impregnable her cordon of naval stations 
 stretching in a straight line from Melbourne on the South to 
 Vancouver's Island on the North. 
 
 France holds the Society Islands, with their fine harbor 
 of Tahiti, the Marquesas Group lying North of Tahiti, some 
 of the Leeward Islands, New Caledonia near Australia, one or 
 two of the New Hebrides Islands, and Hue on the Cochin- 
 China Coast. 
 
 Germany lays protectoral claim to the Marshall Islands, 
 Samoa, part of New Guinea, and one or two islands near the 
 Equator. 
 
t 3 ] 
 
 Russia holds undisputed possession of the Asiatic coast, 
 from Bhering's Straits and Kamschatka to Cor- a and 
 China. 
 
 Spain owns the Phillipine Islands with the spacious 
 harbor of Manilla, and about one hundred islands of the 
 Caroline Group. 
 
 The Dutch Netherlands have long held naval or trading 
 stations in Java, Sumatra, Borneo and New Guinea. 
 
 Portugal owns the Ladrone Islands with the commodious 
 harbor of Guam, a well known resort for American whale- 
 ships. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the principal European nations 
 have already secured the strongest strategic points in the 
 Pacific Ocean, where trading, coaling and naval stations have 
 been or can be located; while the United States does not 
 possess a solitary coaling station beyond her coast line, and 
 is already flanked by strong French, German and English 
 stations, where in case of war she would be compelled to 
 
 SEEK THE PRIVILEGE OF COALING HER SHIPS. 
 
 The termination of the existing treaty may have a more 
 important bearing on the future status of Hawaii than any 
 one can now anticipate. Who can predict what secret rivalry 
 for territorial acquisition in the Pacific may accomplish dur- 
 ing the next twenty years? It is more than a mere probability 
 that the relation now sustained by the United States to 
 Hawaii may very soon be filled by the progressive Dominion 
 of Canada, which may be said to be only waiting her op- 
 poitunity. Or if we turn to the westward, it should not be 
 overlooked that both China and Japan are becoming largely 
 interested in the domestic policy of Hawaii, by reason of the 
 rapid migration of their people thither. It may not be an 
 idle conjecture that the time will soon come when either of 
 these powers, which posses navies of thirty to forty vessels 
 each, some of them ironclads, will make demands on Hawaii 
 which cannot be refused by her except at the peril of losing 
 her independence, backed as these demands can be by a naval 
 force more powerful than that maintained by any other nation 
 in the Pacific. Japan or China will soon be able to plant 
 
[ 4 ] 
 
 colonial outposts in the Central Pacific, as readily as England, 
 France or Germany, and people them far more readily. 
 
 Whatever may be said to the contrary, the influence of 
 the treaty has been to steadily encourage the growth of 
 American commerce in the Pacific Ocean, and with it to 
 strengthen American prestige and influence. The recently 
 published statistics of the Hawaiian Custom-house show most 
 conclusively that of the foreign commerce of Hawaii, over 92 
 per cent, has been with the United States; while of its carry- 
 ing trade about the same percentage was done by American 
 vessels. This is not a mere accident attending the Eociprocity 
 Treaty, but the legitimate result of a well-matured measure, 
 designed to foster American commerce, and which is accom- 
 plishing the design to a greater extent than is generally 
 known. 
 
 From a paper prepared by the writer, and published in 
 1882, having a direct bearing on the treaty, the following ex- 
 tracts are inserted, as equally appropriate now : 
 
 '* Having referred to the treaty in its commercial aspects, 
 it must not be forgotten that it possesses a political feature 
 as impoi'tant as its commercial. When it was under discus- 
 sion in Congress in 1875, its supporters made no claim that 
 the pecuniary advantages would be equally shared by both 
 nations, but frankly conceded that they would preponderate 
 in favor of Hawaii. Nor was the treaty granted by the United 
 States so much for any supposed commercial advantages to 
 her as for national purposes. Her chief design and purpose 
 were to encourage a nation in the Central Pacific that might 
 become a sugar-growing field for her Pacific States and Ter- 
 ritories — a nation regarded as almost a kin to her — that 
 it might become an independent people, free from foreign 
 complications or control, and still attracted to her by the 
 natural ties of kinship and protector. Secretary Blaine, in 
 his letter to Gen. Comly, late American Minister, Kesident 
 at Honolulu, briefly and clearly states the whole case in the 
 following extracts : 
 
 "The situation of the Hawaiian Islands, giving them 
 strategic control of the North Pacific, brings their possession 
 within the range of questions of purely American policy, as 
 
t 5 ] 
 
 much so as that, of the Isthmus of Panama. Hence the necessity, 
 as recognized in our existing relations, of drawing ties of inti- 
 mate relationship between the United States and the Hawaiian 
 Islands, so as to make them practically part of the American 
 system, without deroccation of the absolute independence " * * * 
 *'In a word, Hawaii is, by the wise and beneficent provisions of 
 the treaty, brought within the circle of the domestic trade of the 
 United States, and our interest in its friendly neutrality is the 
 same that we feel in the guaranteed independence of the Isthmus 
 of Panama. On the other hand, Hawaiian interests must in- 
 evitably turn towards the United States in the future as the 
 present, as their natural and sole ally in conserving the dominion 
 of both in the Pacific trade. This government has on previous 
 occasions been brought face to face with the question of a pro- 
 tectorate over the Hawaiian groups. It has, as often as it arose, 
 been set aside in the interest of such commercial union and such 
 reciprocity benefits as would give Hawaii the highest advantages, 
 and at the same time strengthen its independent existence as a 
 sovereign State. In this I have summed up the whole disposi- 
 tion of the United States toward Hawaii in its proper condition." 
 
 When the discussion of the treaty in the Senate turned 
 on the pecuniary advantages that would be derived from it 
 by the Hawaiian Islands, that body sought and obtained a 
 political concession, in the shape of a pledge, as an offset 
 to any pecuniary loss, and the following stipulation was in- 
 serted in Article IV : 
 
 " that so long as this treaty shall remain in force, he 
 
 '* (His Majesty the king) will not lease or otherwise dispose of, 
 " or create any lien in any port, harbor or other territory in his 
 " dominions, or grant any special privileges or rights of use 
 '* therein to any other power, state or government, nor make any 
 " other treaty, by which any other nation shall obtain the same 
 *• privileges relative to the admission of any articles free of duty 
 '' hereby secured to the United States." 
 
 The astute and far-sighted statesmanship which secured 
 such extraordinaiy political advantages as these, amounting 
 almost to a pre-emption right in Hawaii — which some Ha- 
 waiians have thought should never have been asked or 
 granted — cannot reasonably consent to the abrogation of the 
 treaty on account of a pecuniary advantage gained in the 
 bargain, by her insular neighbor. The higher aims of na- 
 tional policy and not any claims of sectional interest were 
 consulted in granting it ; and the clamor of sectional or pri- 
 vate interests wall not set it aside. Little Hawaii has kept 
 
[61 
 
 faith with her great benefactor, even enacting laws to pro- 
 tect the interests of the Treaty and preserve its faith, and it 
 stands before the world for honorable treatment and the 
 maintenance of a carefully-considered Treaty. Can a few 
 partisans, spurred on by an interested hostile discussion, or 
 yielding to other influences, compromise the interests of the 
 great Eepublic towards this little State ? We will not be- 
 lieve it ! 
 
 Abrogate the Treaty — and some other nation may 
 hasten to secure the extraordinary concessions made by it, 
 and thus acquire a claim in, and power over our archipelago, 
 which from its position is the key to the future commerce of 
 the Pacific, which may steam fiom the Atlantic via the Pa- 
 nama Isthmus, to oriental ports, and to the numberless 
 groups scattered over this ocean. Preserve the Treaty — and 
 so long as it lasts no nation will violate its provisions, or 
 meddle with Hawaii's independence. While it remains in 
 force, it is a standing notice to all that Hawaii shall be inde- 
 pendent and free from foreign control. Where is the Ameri- 
 can, who, when he considers the vast wealth of his country, 
 with her treasury overflowing with an annual surplus of one 
 hundred millions—can begrudge the comparatively small loss 
 under the treaty, or who can show a bettor way to maintain 
 her supremacy in this ocean, or, perhaps more strictly speak- 
 ing, to prevent the supremacy of every oiher power ? 
 
 American ideas and the spirit of^ American institutions 
 are spreading over the world, silently but powerfully influenc- 
 ing every European and Asiatic government and people. 
 They have taken root in Hawaii and raised her to her pre- 
 sent condition of unexampled prosperity. And from this 
 central group of the Pacific, which under the Treaty is 
 practically an American Colony, the seeds of American en- 
 terprise, American industry, American civilization, with all 
 the ennobling influence of her political and religious institu- 
 tions, are being scattered over this ocean, permeating the 
 masses that people its continents and islands. With such a 
 record of the past, and a grander future before her, Ameri- 
 can statesmen should hesitate before surrendering the pre- 
 cedence which this Treaty secured to her in this group and 
 
[ 7 ] 
 
 throughout this ocean ; especially at a time when her in- 
 dustries are calling so loudly for the opening of new avenues 
 for the disbursement of the surplus products and manu- 
 factures from her Western prairies and her Eastern and 
 Southern workshops. The extraordinary growth in the de- 
 mand for these products in this group, will soon extend to 
 those lying beyond us, till the millions of Polynesia and 
 Oceanica will learn to rely on America for subsistence, to be 
 fed and clothed by American industry, as Hawaii now is. 
 
Stockton, Calif. 
 T. M. Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. 
 
 ^^^'^■-^ "^M^y 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
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