Home: The Annexation Of Hawaii: A Collection Of Document
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Senate Ex. Doc. No. 31, Fifty-third Congress, third session. MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, SUBMITTING Dispatches and accompanying documents from the Untied States minister at Hawaii, relative to the lease to Great Britain of an island as a station for a submarine telegraph cable. January 9, 1895.-Read, referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and ordered to be printed. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I submit herewith certain dispatches from our minister at Hawaii and the documents which accompanied the same. They disclose the fact that the Hawaiian Government desires to lease to Great Britain one of the uninhabited islands belonging to Hawaii as a station for a submarine telegraph cable to be laid from Canada to Australia, with a connection between the island leased and Honolulu. Both the Hawaiian Government and the representatives of Great Britain in this negotiation concede that the proposed lease can not be effected without the consent of the United States, for the reason that in our reciprocity treaty with the King of Hawaii he agreed that as long-as said treaty remained in force he would not "lease or otherwise dispose of or create any lien upon any port, harbor, or other territory in his dominion, or grant any special privilege or right of use therein to any other power, state, or government." At the request of the Hawaiian Government this subject is laid before the Congress for its determination upon the question of so modifying the treaty agreement above recited as to permit the proposed lease. It will be seen that the correspondence which is submitted between the Hawaiian and British negotiators negatives the existence on the part of Hawaii of any suspicion of British unfriendliness or the fear of British aggression. The attention of the Congress is directed to the following statement contained in a communication addressed to the Hawaiian Government by the representatives of Great Britain: We propose to inform the British. Government of your inquiry, whether they would accept the sovereignty of Necker Island or some other uninhabited island on con- 1375