Home: The Annexation Of Hawaii: A Collection Of Document
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24 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. The convention was not however ratified and proclaimed until "No- vember, 1887, owing to considerable opposition to the extension of the original compact by the sugar interests of this country and further dis- cussion 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 Representa- tives 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, presum- ably in the interest of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's tele- graphic 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 exclu- sive 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 con- sider 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 Govern- ment, 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