HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS.	195
States, through Secretary Marcy, thirty-eight years ago, to offer to 
expend $100,000 to secure a treaty of annexation, it certainly can not 
be chimerieal or unwise to expend $100,000 to secure annexation in 
the near future. To-day the United States has five times the wealth 
she possessed in 1854, and the reasons now existing for annexation are 
much stronger than they were then. I can not refrain from expressing 
the opinion with emphasis that the golden hour is near at hand. A 
perpetual customs union and the acquisition of Pearl Harbor, with an 
implied protectorate, must be regarded as the only allowable alterna- 
tive. This would require the continual presence in the harbor of 
Honolulu of a United States vessel of war and the constant watchful- 
ness of the United States minister while the present bungling, unset- 
tled, and expensive political rule would go on, retarding the develop- 
ment of the islands, leaving at the end of twenty-five years more 
embarrassment to annexation than exists to-day, the property far less 
valuable, and the population less American than they would be if an- 
nexation were soon realized.
It may be said that annexation would involve the obligation of pay- 
ing to the Hawaiian sugar-producers the same rate of bounties now 
paid to American producers, thus imposing too heavy a demand on the 
United States Treasury. It is a sufficient answer to this question to 
say that it could be specifically provided in the terms of annexation 
that the United States Government should pay 6 mills per pound - 
$12 per ton - to the Hawaiian sugar-raisers, and this only so long as 
the present sugar-bounty system of the United States shall be main- 
tained. Careful inquiry and investigation bring me to the conclusion 
that this small bounty would tide the Hawaiian sugar-planters over 
their present alarming condition and save the islands from general 
business depletion and financial disaster. Could justice to American 
interests in the islands and care for their future welfare do less than 
this?
To give Hawaii a highly favorable treaty while she remains outside 
the American Union would necessarily give the same advantages to 
hostile foreigners, those who would continue to antagonize our com- 
mercial and political interests here, as well as those of American-blood 
and sympathies. It is a well authenticated fact that the American 
sentiment here in 1890, the last year of the great prosperity under the 
sugar provisions of the reciprocity treaty, was much less manifest than 
before the treaty had gone into effect, and less pronounced than when 
Secretary Marcy authorized the negotiation of the annexation treaty in 
1854. It is equally true that the desire here at this time for annexa- 
tion is much stronger than in 1889. Besides, so long as the islands re- 
tain their own independent government there remains the possibility 
that England or the Canadian Dominion might secure one of the Ha- 
waiian harbors for a coaling station. Annexation excludes all dangers 
of this kind.
Which of the two lines of policy and action shall be adopted our 
statesmen and our Government must decide. Certain it is that the 
interests of the United States and the welfare of these islands will not 
permit the continuance of the existing state and tendency of things. 
Having for so many years extended a helping hand to the islands and 
encouraging the American residents and their friends at home to the 
extent we have, we can not refrain now from aiding them with vigor- 
ous measures, without injury to ourselves and those of our "kith and 
kin," and without neglecting American opportunities that never 
seemed so obvious and pressing as they do now. I have no doubt that

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