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great progress in adjudicating the claims of the common people, but its powers were not adequate to dispose of the still unsettled questions between the King, the chiefs, and the Government, though it must be admitted that it made progress in that direction. Neither was the chiefs ready to submit their claims to its decision.
After earnest efforts between the King and chiefs to reach a settlement of these questions, the rules already referred to were unanimously adopted by the King and chiefs in privy council December 18, 1847. These rules, which were drawn up by Judge Lee, embodied the following points: The King should retain his private lands as his individual property, to descend to his heirs and successors; the remainder of the landed property to be divided equally between the Government, the chiefs, and the common people.
As the land was all held at this time by the King, the chiefs, and their tenants, this division involved the surrender by the chiefs of a third of their lands to the Government, or a payment in lieu thereof in money, as had already been required of the tenant landholders. A committee, of which Dr. Judd was chairman, was appointed to carry out the division authorized by the privy council, and the work was completed in forty days. The division between the King and the chiefs was effected through partition deeds signed by both parties. The chiefs then went before the land commission and received awards for the lands thus partitioned off to them, and afterwards many of them commuted for the remaining one-third interest of the Government by a surrender of a portion.
After the division between the King and the chiefs was finished he again divided the lands which had been surrendered to him between himself and the Government, the former being known thereafter as Crown lands and the latter as Government lands.
This division, with the remaining work of the land commission, completed the great land reform, the first signal of which was announced by Kamehameha III, in his declaration of rights, June 7, 1839. A brief ten years had been sufficient for the Hawaiian nation to break down the hoary traditions and venerable customs of the past, and to climb the difficult path from a selfish feudalism to equal rights, from royal control of all the public domain to peasant proprietorship and fee-simple titles for poor and for rich. It came quickly and without bloodshed because the nation was ready for it. Foreign intercourse, hostile and friendly, and the spirit of a Christian civilization had an educating influence upon the eager nation, united by the genius of Kamehameha I, with its brave and intelligent warrior chiefs resting from the conquest of arms, their exuberant energies free for the conquest of new ideas; with rare wisdom, judgment, and patriotism they proved equal to the demands of the time upon them.
IX. Also the following extract from the report of hon. john quincy adams, chairman of the committee on foreign affairs of the house of representatives.
"It is a subject of cheering contemplation to the friends of human improvement and virtue, that by the mild and gentle influence of Christian charity, dispensed by humble missionaries of the gospel, unarmed with secular power, within the last quarter of a century, the people of this group of islands have been converted from the lowest debasement of idolatry to the blessings of the Christian gospel; united under one balanced government; rallied to the fold of civilization by a written language and constitution, providing security for the rights of persons, property, and mind, and invested with all the elements of
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right and power which can entitle them to be acknowledged by their brethren of the human race as a separate and independent community. To the consummation of their acknowledgment the people of the North American Union are urged by an interest of their own, deeper than that of any other portion of the inhabitants of the earth—by a virtual right of conquest, not over the freedom of their brother man by the brutal arm of physical power, but over the mind and heart by the celestial panoply of the gospel of peace and love."
X. Also the following hawaiian treaty and review of its commercial results.
THE HAWAIIAN TREATY.
A REVIEW OF ITS COMMERCIAL RESULTS.
The Hawaiian treaty was negotiated for the purpose of securing political control of those islands, making them industrially and commercially a part of the United States and preventing any other great power from acquiring a foothold there, which might be adverse to the welfare and safety of our Pacific coast in time of war. They are situated midway on the direct way from Panama to Hongkong and directly on the shortest line from the Columbia River or Puget Sound to Australia. Here the two great lines of future commerce of the Pacific Ocean intersect, and vessels must stop there for refreshment and refuge.
The islands prior to the treaty were declining in population, and owing to the decay of the whale fishery, were declining in wealth. Their soil is, perhaps, the most productive for sugar raising of any known in the world. But the high tariff on sugar and the exceedingly low wages which must be paid in tropical countries for raising sugar to supply the United States rendered the industry difficult. In 1875 a movement arose in the islands for the importation of Hindoo coolies to supply the requisite cheap labor, and the consent of England was promised. The growth of the Australian colonies had gradually developed an improving market for Hawaiian sugar, and, after a trial of it by some of the Hawaiian planters, it was found that better prices could be obtained in the free-trade port of Sydney than in San Francisco, and return cargoes could be bought there much more cheaply. Preparations were making for sending there the entire crops of 1876- '77. These matters came to the knowledge of the State Department. The Hawaiians had been pressing for many years for a commercial treaty with the United States, but without success. It was now felt in the State Department that the question was assuming graver importance, and, as political supremacy in the islands must inevitably follow the commerce, it was recognized that this country must make favorable concessions to them, or else let them follow the inevitable tendency and drift slowly into the status of an English colony. The result was the negotiation of the existing treaty and its ratification by the consent of the Senate. The effect of the treaty was as follows:
It was anticipated that the remission of duties would make the profits of sugar culture very great. But a sugar plantation requires for the most economical work a large amount of capital, $500,000 being very moderate for a single plantation, and $250,000 being about as small as is prudent. The islanders had no capital of any consequence and were obliged to borrow it from the United States (i. e., from or through the mercantile houses of San Francisco who import their sugar and act as agents to the planters for selling it to the refineries). The opening of plantations proceeded rapidly until the output of sugar has now nearly
S. Doc. 231, pt 6----30
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