People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1893 — SOMEWHAT SCARCE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT SCARCE.

A Dearth of Real News from Unhappy HawaiL Washington, Nov. 16.—The administration is gravely annoyed at the persistency with which the stories of cabinet resignations are repeated. It is said now that Morton not only has no intention of resigning but that h<Lis in full sympathy with the determination of the president and Secretary Gresham to restore the queen. Hoke Smith is also going to stay in the cabinet. The opposition newspapers persistently declare that it is known beyond doubt that there have been dissensions in the cabinet, while the administration journals are as vehement in their declarations that all is peace in the presidential official family. It has been decided not to make public Commissioner Blount’s report at present. As to its contents, when it is finally made public, people will find it is simply in line with the general position of the administration, that the revolution was a fraud and conspiracy, carried on by corrupt men with connivance of the American minister. The officials who have been giving out the news about the policy of the administration reiterate the statement made several days ago that if Minister Willis and Admiral Irwin have carried out their instructions the queen is by this time on the throne. And they say further they have no doubt she is now restored.

There is an entire dearth of any real news from Hawaii or about Hawaii The speculation as to what has been occurring there in the week oast is, however, by no means abated. Nearly everyone has taken one side or the other, and is either an earnest wisher for the prompt success of the effort to restore Queen Liliuokalani. or is vaguely hopeful that something may intervene to balk the purpose announced by this government. The fear of the friends of the present government is that Minister Willis will push President Dole to an immediate decision and demand prompt surrender of all his authority on the ground that the provisional government itself put a limit upon the duration of its own authority, and that limit expires when Minister Willis announces to him that there is no possible chance of annexation to the United States. It is a fact that for several months past the provisional government has recognized that there was no hope of securing annexation to the United States, and has felt fully the obligation upon it under those circumstances of providing a permanent form of government for the islands. The form of the proposed government has been discussed, and it has been proposed to call it a commonwealth. It is expected that President Dole will advance these facts as arguments against the contention of Minister Willis that his government—the government to which Willis is accredited—has expired by its own limitation. Should Minister Willis decline to recognize the validity of this argument, and President Dole determine to follow his contention so far as may lie in his power, his next step is expected to be to formally notify the United States minister that he will not yield without the employment of force, and that he will regard the landing of troops from the men of war to enforce his deposition as an act of war.

The diplomatic representatives of foreign countries in Honolulu are always looked to with eagerness in a civil emergency, and opponents of restoration assert their belief that these would formally protest against’ the act of the United States minister, with the exception of the representatives of Great Britain and Japan and possibly Russia. There have been rumors from the state department that the United States has not entered upon the attempt to restore the queen without a thorough understanding with all the powers, and it is said the government has received assurances that no objection would be raised to its plan. With regard to Germany, France and Portugal, opponents of restoration say that citizens of all these powers recognized the necessity for the maintenance of good order and the preservation of property and constitutional rights of the overthrow of the q»een. These governments, they believe, would decline to approve her restoration. Great Britain would unquestionably welcome the restoration of Queen Liliuokalani, and the prospect of the early accession of the Princess Kaiulani as the best hope of a government distinctively in the British interest By a convention with France in 1843 England agreed to rafrain from ever-annexing the Hawaiian islands or taking them under a proteetorate, but she has never ceased to try to influence and control the local government to her own interests and the exclusion of others.