With this somewhat extended reference to the past of the Hawaiian
Islands and their people, it is deemed that a brief allusion to their
present political, social, industrial and commercial condition will
not be out of place. The legends presented leave the simple but warlike
islanders standing naked but not ashamed in the light of civilization
suddenly flashed upon them from across the seas. In the darkness
behind them are legends and spears; in the light before them are
history and law. Let us see what the years since have done for them.
The Hawaiian government of to-day is a mild constitutional monarchy,
the ruling family claiming descent from the most ancient and respected
of the chiefly blood of Hawaii. The departments of the government
are legislative, executive and judicial.
The Legislative Assembly, which meets every two years, consists of
representatives chosen by the people, nobles named by the sovereign,
and crown ministers. They act in a single body, choosing their
presiding officer by ballot, and their proceedings are held jointly
in the English and Hawaiian languages, and in both are their laws and
proceedings published. As the elective franchise is confined to native
and naturalized citizens, the most of the representatives chosen by
the people are natives, all of whom are more or less educated, and
many of whom are graceful and eloquent debaters. White representatives
of accepted sympathy with the natives are occasionally elected, and a
majority of the nobles and ministers are white men. The English common
law is the basis of their statutes, and their civil and criminal
codes are not unlike our own. The Legislature fixes tax, excise
and customs charges, and provides by appropriation for all public
expenditure. The representatives are paid small salaries, and the
Legislature is formally convened and prorogued by the king in person.
Although the present sovereign was elected by the Legislature, for the
reason heretofore mentioned, the naming of a successor is left to the
occupant of the throne. The king is provided at public expense with
a palace and royal guard, and appropriations of money amounting to
perhaps forty thousand dollars yearly. He has also some additional
income from what are known as crown lands. The two sisters of the
king and the daughter of one of them receive from the treasury an
aggregate of fifteen thousand five hundred dollars yearly. The king
entertains liberally, is generous with his friends and attendants,
and probably finds his income no more than sufficient to meet his wants
from year to year. His advisers are four Ministers of State and a Privy
Council. The Ministry is composed of a Minister of Foreign Affairs,
who ranks as premier, Minister of Finance, Minister of Interior,
and Attorney-General. The Privy Council is composed of thirty or
forty leading citizens appointed by the Crown. In certain matters
they have original and exclusive powers. They are convened in council
from time to time, but receive no compensation. The most of the Privy
Councillors are white men, and embrace almost every nationality. The
majority of the ministers of state are usually white men of ability,
and their salaries are six thousand dollars per annum each.
The judiciary is composed of a Supreme Court of three members, one
of whom is chief-justice and chancellor, Circuit Courts holden in
different districts, and minor magistrates' courts in localities where
they are required. The Supreme and Circuit judges are all white men,
and but few magistrates are natives. The salaries of the superior
judges are respectable, and the most of them are men of ability. The
laws, as a rule, are intelligently administered and promptly executed,
and life and property are amply protected.
Public schools are numerous throughout the islands, and are largely
attended by native children. A considerable proportion of the adult
natives are able to read and write their own language, and a number
of native newspapers and periodicals are sustained. The English press
of Honolulu--the only point of publication--is respectable in ability
and enterprise.
Leprosy was brought to the islands by the Chinese about forty years
ago, and has become a dangerous and loathsome scourge. Lepers are
seldom encountered, however, as they are removed, whenever discovered,
to the island of Molokai, where they are humanely cared for by the
government. It is a cureless but painless affliction, and is doubtless
contagious under certain conditions. Nine-tenths or more of the lepers
are either natives or Chinese, and the whole number amounts to perhaps
twelve hundred. It is not thought that the malady is increasing,
and it is hoped that a careful segregation of the afflicted will in
time eradicate the disease from the group.
The commerce of the islands is largely in the hands of foreigners, and
the sugar plantations are almost exclusively under their control. There
are but few native merchants, the large dealers being Americans,
Germans, English and French, while the smaller traders are generally
Portuguese and Chinese. There are native lawyers, clerks, mechanics,
magistrates and police-men; but the most of the race who are compelled
to labor for their support find employment as farm and plantation
laborers, stevedores, sailors, coachmen, boatmen, fishermen, gardeners,
fruit-pedlars, waiters, soldiers and house-servants, in all of which
capacities they are generally industrious, cheerful and honest.
The products of the islands for export are sugar, molasses, rice,
bananas, fungus, hides and wool, of an aggregate approximate
value of eight million dollars annually. The principal product,
however, is sugar, amounting to perhaps one hundred thousand tons
yearly. Nine-tenths of the exports of the group find a market in the
United States, and four-fifths or more of the imports in value are from
the great Republic. The receipts and expenditures of the government are
a little less than one million five hundred thousand dollars annually,
derived principally from customs duties and direct taxation.
The population of the islands is a little more than eighty thousand,
of which about forty-five thousand are natives. The Americans,
English, Germans, Norwegians and French number perhaps ten thousand,
and Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese from the Azores constitute the
most of the remainder.
The postal facilities of the islands are ample and
reliable. Inter-island steamers, of which there are many, convey the
mails throughout the group at regular intervals, and the San Franciscan
and Australian steamers afford a punctual and trustworthy service with
the rest of the world. The islands have a postal money-order system
reaching within and beyond their boundaries, and are connected with
the Universal Postal Union.
Over twenty thousand of the inhabitants of the group are centred
in Honolulu, the capital of the kingdom, and its beautiful and
dreamy suburb of Waikiki. The business portions of the city, with
their macadamized and lighted streets, and blocks of brick and stone
buildings, have a thrifty and permanent appearance, while the eastern
suburbs, approaching the hills with a gentle ascent, abound in charming
residences embowered in palms. Small mountain streams run through the
city and afford an abundant supply of sweet water, which is further
augmented by a number of flowing artesian wells. With a temperature
ranging from seventy to ninety degrees, Honolulu, with its substantial
churches and public buildings, its air of affluence and dreamy quiet,
is a delightful place of residence to those who enjoy the heat and
languor of the tropics.
In the midst of these evidences of prosperity and advancement it is but
too apparent that the natives are steadily decreasing in numbers and
gradually losing their hold upon the fair land of their fathers. Within
a century they have dwindled from four hundred thousand healthy and
happy children of nature, without care and without want, to a little
more than a tenth of that number of landless, hopeless victims to
the greed and vices of civilization. They are slowly sinking under
the restraints and burdens of their surroundings, and will in time
succumb to social and political conditions foreign to their natures and
poisonous to their blood. Year by year their footprints will grow more
dim along the sands of their reef-sheltered shores, and fainter and
fainter will come their simple songs from the shadows of the palms,
until finally their voices will be heard no more for ever. And then,
if not before--and no human effort can shape it otherwise--the Hawaiian
Islands, with the echoes of their songs and the sweets of their green
fields, will pass into the political, as they are now firmly within
the commercial, system of the great American Republic.
February, 1887.