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MR. GAY'S EXPERIENCES.

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made it impossible for me to go away from Honolulu. Mr. Gay was an unqualified annexationist. He raised cattle as well as merino sheep, and had large interests in both industries.

"I was a British subject," he said, "and have a profound love for English institutions. Personally, I would have preferred the protection of the English flag, but it is not practicable. The Hawaiian Islands, by all the laws of right and nature, are in sympathy with the United States, to whom they owe their institutions and their civilisation. People of other nationalities here simply reaped the reward of American enlightenment and Christianising. With unrestricted commerce between the United States, her markets freely open to us, our commercial and national prosperity will be assured."

"What is your estimate of the Hawaiians politically?"

"They are unfitted even to govern themselves, still more to govern others. I have lived all my life amongst them, have grown up with them, and speak their language as fluently as I speak my own. They are indolent; they are ease-loving, cheerful, generous, and amiable; but their judgment is very imperfect; they are irresponsible, and possess very little forethought. If the wants of the present are provided for, even among the more intelligent, they put aside every care for the future. They are the most pliant of tools, and fatally susceptible to polit

ical corruption. Last year we sent a man to the Legislature whom we believed we could trust implicitly, but he went over to the Queen's adherents, undoubtedly bribed.

It is perfectly impossible that

they should be able to form any estimate of the needs of an intelligent and civilised country; many of them, enfranchised citizens, privileged to vote under the old Constitution, still live in the primitive way, in huts, subsisting on fish and poi. It is true that the majority can read and write, but their education rarely progresses beyond this; they are too much indisposed toward any protracted or systematic effort. It is useless to talk of elevating them or fitting them for the exercise of authority. It has been tried patiently for years, and they are more incapable now than they were twenty years ago, being influenced by a class whose association has always been harmful, and never beneficial."

Reverting again to sheep-raising, Mr. Gay said that the mutton produced on Hawaii was of good quality, and the wool was such as is used in the manufacture of fine worsteds. There is so little fresh water on the island, that as the fleeces cannot be washed in salt water the wool has to be exported "in the dirt," as he expressed it. This increases the bulk, and proportionately the cost of exportation.

"The United States is our natural market," he said; “England has already an over-supply, and is too far away. By the time we send our products to

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California, across the States, and the Atlantic, there is no profit for the ranchman. Last year we sent a good deal to Australia, and Canada is our best and largest market, by the way of Vancouver and the Canadian Pacific Railroad."

Mr. Gay was asked if wool-growing in Hawaii would not conflict with the industry in the United States.

"No," he replied. "Our territory is naturally so limited that we can never engage in sheep-raising on the extensive scale possible in America. We can never be, in any important sense, a rival. But," he said in conclusion, "the commercial aspect is the least consideration in the question. The people here have been very patient with a monarchy which has gone from bad to worse. We have given up all hope of improvement from this source, and we can only rely upon annexation, complete and absolute, either to England or to the United States, for stable Government. I think, personally, that your election methods are very bad; they cannot be compared to those that prevail in Great Britain, or the English Colonies; but, notwithstanding this, the fitting and natural disposition of the Hawaiian Islands is to make them a part of the United States. The Government cannot and will not remain as it is. If your country cannot take us, England will."

ΟΝ

CHAPTER X.

THE PRESIDENT'S COMMISSIONER.

N Thursday, March 9th, the Senate held its second session, just five days after the inauguration of President Cleveland. They took immediate action upon a message in which Mr. Cleveland recommended the withdrawal of the Hawaiian treaty which had been approved by ex-President Harrison. Recommending is perhaps a misleading term, as Mr. Cleveland usually commanded, and his orders were carried out in a manner much more like that of an autocratic ruler than the representative of the people, in office by their concurrence and their suffrages.

Mr. Gresham, the recently chosen Secretary of State, informed the Hawaiian Commissioner, the Hon. L. A. Thurston, that, "with insignificant knowledge of facts and of details, they desired time for consideration of the subject, and the treaty had been withdrawn for that purpose.

Subsequent action contradicted this, which was a mere excuse to gain time. There was never a

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moment from the hour that they went into office when both the President and his Secretary of State were not bitterly hostile to the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands and afterwards to the Republic, because they had secured the sympathy and co-operation of the ex-President, to whom both Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Gresham were unfriendly. The contemptuous setting aside of the testimony of the five Commissioners who had been dispatched to Washington at the time of the Revolution — five men of tested integrity, uprightness, and disinterestedness was part and parcel of what was to be endured without cessation for the ensuing four years. No one in the Islands had dreamed that the Hawaiian Commissioners would meet with such a churlish treatment at the hands of President Cleveland and his Cabinet. Experience taught them, subsequently, that they need expect no other.

When, however, the five men realised that argument was useless they desisted, and Mr. W. C. Wilder, one of their number, returned to Honolulu. Before he arrived American newspapers were received, in which it was stated that the President was about to appoint a Commission of three men, who, it was thought, would be Judge Cooley, of Michigan, a high authority in international law; Admiral Brown, who had been for so many years a warm friend of the natives; and General Schofield, of the United States Army. It was supposed that this