HAWAII. 



of appointing a new Cabinet. Tho nutivo 

 y called mi her In -elri-t Hawaiian-; ami per- 

 i identified with their interests. Col. Ash- 

 , commander of tin- Honolulu Killcs, a vol- 

 eorp-ihnt is more cllicicnt than the regu- 

 itiiry force, and is maintained merely as 

 en-i.^n's liody guard, was suspected of a 

 !-y out lliis idea by force. This 

 was resisted by the American mission- 

 es iiiid ollieials, headed by Chief-Justice Judd, 

 favored the sugar-planting interest, and 

 :itfd a list to which the Queen took 

 ecption U'cause it was composed of white men 

 ho were opposed to placing natives in respon- 

 posts. Various other combinations were 

 'd, and when a list was at last made 

 up. with Mr. Widemann as Premier, two members 

 of the old Cabinet refused to retire, on the Con- 

 itutional ground that they could only be dis- 

 need by a vote of censure. Leaving this 

 estion to be settled by the Supreme Court, 

 ,een Liliuokalani at last made definite selec- 

 ns. which were announced on Feb. 25. The 

 ief Ju-tice and other members of the Supreme 

 urt, with one dissenting voice, made a decis- 

 11 that. besides the method set forth in the 

 nst ii ut ion, a sovereign on ascending the 

 rone can exercise the royal prerogative to dis- 

 iss the ministers of his predecessor in order 

 appoint others possessing his confidence. The 

 ew ministry was composed of the following 

 [embers : Premier and Minister of Foreign Af- 

 irs, Samuel Parker; Minister of the Interior, 

 harles N. Spencer, who had the same portfolio 

 the preceding Cabinet; Minister of Finance, 

 ermann Widemann : Attorney-General, Wil- 

 111 Whiting. Mr. Widemann was unable to 

 >pe with the financial crisis created by the new 

 merican reciprocity treaties, and gave up his 

 lace in the summer to a Minister of Finance 

 pable of commanding more confidence. The 

 .eath of Mr. Dominis, the Queen's consort, in 

 'e early part of September, Liliuokalani's 

 iown predilections for the English, and the 

 t that the heiress-apparent was taken by her 

 ,ther, A. S. Cleghorn, who was born in Scotland, 

 be educated in England, gave rise to rumors 

 British intrigues to gain an ascendency in 

 lawaii to the detriment of the United States, 

 esponsible statesmen studiously denied the 

 sibility of the Hawaiians accepting a British 

 protectorate, and spoke of the prospect of their 

 2rificing their independence to become a part 

 af the United States as equally remote and at 

 present unacceptable on either side. 



Treaty Negotiations with the United 

 States. The Hawaiians considered that the 

 eciprocity clause of the McKinley bill deprived 

 hem unfairly of the advantages of the reciproc- 

 ty treaty made with the United States in 1870, 

 id renewed for eight years more in 1887, under 

 ?hich the sugar-growing industry of Hawaii had 

 'eveloped and many thousands of persons had 

 been brought from abroad to work on the plan- 

 tations and had been added to the permanent 

 population of the islands. To secure the free 

 importation of Hawaiian sugar into the United 

 States, the duties were taken off from Ameri- 

 can agricultural implements, iron and all man- 

 ufactures of iron, cotton manufactures, and many 

 other articles. The passage of the McKinley 



HAYTI. 



bill, removing the duty from all fore'gn sugar, 

 nullified the advantage seen red to Hawaii by the 

 reciprocity treaty, and injured her Migar trade to 

 the extent of $5iOOO,000 a year, as was estimated. 

 Tin- Hawaiian Government asked to be recom- 

 pensed for this loss. The Government at Wash- 

 ington proposed a new treaty establishing free 

 trade in all products between the two countries. 

 This was acceptable, but was not regarded as an 

 equivalent for the preferential treatment enjoyed 

 under the old arrangement. The Hawaiian di- 

 plomatists suggested that in addition the sugar 

 planters of the Sandwich Islands should rcecivn 

 the bounty of 2 cents a pound given to the plant- 

 ers of Louisiana. II. A. P. Carter, the Hawai- 

 ian minister at Washington, urged this view. 

 and after he fell ill Dr. Mott Smith, a native of 

 New York, was sent as a special envoy to Wash- 

 ington in November, 1891, to take up the nego- 

 tiations for a modification of the treaty, and also 

 to urge the desirability of cable communication 

 between San Francisco and Honolulu. The 

 Hawaiian Legislature has agreed to pay a sub- 

 sidy of $25,000 a month to a cable company, and 

 it was desired to have the United States grant 

 one of $50,000 a month. 



HAYTI or HAITI, a republic occupving the 

 western end of the island known by the same 

 name and formerly called Hispaniola, the largest 

 but one of the Antilles. The President, accord- 

 ing to the Constitution, which was adopted in 

 1867, is elected by vote of the people for seven 

 years. The country has been so disturbed by 

 civil wars that the President is not regularly 

 elected, but is proclaimed by the Legislature or 

 the troops, or, if the forms of an election are 

 complied with, the vote is taken only in the sec- 

 tion where his party preponderates. The legis- 

 lative authority is vested by the Constitution in 

 the National Assembly, consisting of the Senate 

 and the House of Representatives. The members 

 of the House of Representatives, 50 in number, 

 are elected for three years by the direct vote of 

 all male citizens who have a regular occupation. 

 The senatorial term is six years. Every two 

 years one third of the Senators, who number 30 

 in all, go out, and their successors are chosen by 

 the vote of the House of Representatives from 

 two lists of names submitted by the President 

 and by electoral colleges. The present chief of 

 the republic is Gen. Hippolyte, who in a san- 

 guinary war defeated President Legitime, and was 

 proclaimed President in October, 1889. Louis 

 Mondestin Florvil Hippolyte, though black, is 

 the son of one of the ministers of the Emperor 

 Faustin I and his French wife. He was born at 

 Cane Haytien in 1827, was educated in France, 

 followed a military career, and distinguished 

 himself by his defence of the fortress of Eclair 

 in the revolution of 1865. 



Area and Population. The area of Hayti 

 is estimated at 10,204 square miles. The popula- 

 tion was estimated by Dantes Fortunat, a native 

 statistician, at 900,000 in 1887 ; others make it 

 as low as 572,000. The people are all of African 

 descent. The mulattoes, about one tenth of the 

 population, constitute a distinct class, which for- 

 merly possessed all the wealth, education, and 

 political power. The language of the common 

 people is a corrupt French dialect, known as 

 Creole French. Elementary education is gratu- 





