Mr. Stevens to Mr. Foster.
No. 65.]
Honolulu , September 14, 1892 .
Sir: In my dispatch, No. 64, of September 9, I expressed the hope that I would be able to send the information by this mail that a new Hawaiian cabinet had been formed to take the place of the one so emphatically voted out by the legislature, but the deadlock between the Queen and the legislature continues. She has announced a new cabinet, but it is so unsatisfactory to the legislative majority and the business men of the islands that it will undoubtedly be rejected to-day; but the vote will not be taken in time to send the information of the fact by this mail, which closes at 11 a.m. The Tahitian half-caste favorite [Page 184] of the Queen, the marshal of the little kingdom, an el his band of adventurers, still dominate the palace and defy the responsible men of the legislature and the islands. An associate of the half caste favorite is an American renegade by the name of Whaley, a disgraced and expelled San Francisco custom-house official, now at the head of the “opium ring,” and one of the supposed owners of the Halcyon, the notorious smuggling schooner which flits between these islands and British Columbia. This man Whaley has more brain than the Tahitian favorite.
The better portion of the English residents are in substantial accord with the principal Americans in support of the legislature, and the chief German commercial houses and influential German residents are in full agreement with the Americans; but more or less of the English are so jealous of the strong American sentiment in the legislature that they support the Queen and the Tahitian favorite openly or covertly. The native Hawaiians, composing half of the legislature, are about equally divided. The unscrupulous adventurers of different nationalities—Americans, English, and Germans, without character, and most of them without property—are with the half-caste Tahitian favorite and the Queen. A majority of the legislature and the best citizens of the islands are exercising remarkable forbearance and self-control.
It is proper for me to say that just at this time Mr. Mott Smith, the present minister at Washington, is likely to be misinformed as to the real condition of things, for the rejected minister of foreign affairs, a native Hawaiian, of the Queen’s supporters, still occupies the foreign office, and the American deputy would hardly dare to send any advices to Minister Smith not indorsed by the acting head of the department.
The U. S. S. Boston is in the harbor, and Capt. Wiltse will coöperate with me in exercising careful circumspection. In about twelve days from this I can send another dispatch.
I am, sir, etc.,