No. 347.
Mr. Frelinghuysen to Mr. Carter.
Washington, December 6, 1883.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive your note of the 18th of October last, inclosing a signed protest on the part of the Hawaiian Government against the annexation of archipelagoes and islands of Polynesia by foreign powers, and especially by Great Britain, in behalf of which protest the sympathies of this Government are asked.
It is unnecessary to assure you that the sympathies of this Government and the people of this country are always in favor of good self-government by the independent communities of the world.
While we could not, therefore, view with complacency any movement tending to the extinction of the national life of the intimately connected commonwealths of the Northern Pacific, the attitude of this Government towards the distant outlying groups of Polynesia is necessarily different.
It is understood that the agitation to which the protest refers as now existing in Australia contemplates the immediate protection and eventual annexation of the New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, and the immediately adjacent groups to the Australian colonial system. [Page 576] These islands are geographically allied to Australasia rather than to Polynesia. At no time have they go asserted and maintained a separate national life as to entitle them to entrance, by treaty stipulations and established forms of competent self-government, into the family of nations, as Hawaii and Samoa have done. Their material development has been largely due to their intercourse with the great Australian system, near which they lie, and this Government would not feel called upon to view with concern any further strengthening of such intercourse, when neither the sympathies of our people are touched nor their direct political or commercial relations with those scattered communities threatened by the proposed change.
The President, before whom the protest has been brought, moved by these considerations, does not regard the matter as one calling for the interposition of the United States, either to oppose or support the suggested measure.
Accept, &c.,