"The mass of our people [the English] have not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in many instances sunk below it; compared with our wondrous progress in physical science and its practical application, our system of government, of administering justice, of national education, and our whole social and moral organisation remain in a state of barbarism. Our gigantic commerce creates an army who in this respect are worse off than the savage in the midst of his tribe. Until there is a more general recognition of this failure of our civilisation, we shall never, as regards the whole community, attain any real important superiority over the better class of savages: this is the lesson I have been taught by my observations of uncivilised man."
"General "William Booth wrote:
"More minute, patient, intelligent observation has been devoted to the study of earthworms [in England] than to the evolution or rather the degradation of the sunken section of our people,"—
of whom, he said, three millions, equal in number to the inhabitants of Scotland, are in a state of abject destitution and misery.
As I review these notes of travel I may add what our genial friend Lord Charles Beresford has recently written:
"British society has been eaten into by the canker of money. From the top downward the tree is rotten. The most immoral pass before the public as the most philanthropic and as doers of all good works. Beauty is the slave of gold. Our intellect, led by beauty, unknowingly dances to the strings which are pulled by Plutocracy."
Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in his "Tour Around the World," which anticipated ours by two years, wrote:
"The traveller will not see in all his wanderings so much abject, repulsive misery among human beings in the most heathen lands as that which startles him in his Christian home."
Emerson puts the knife into our boastings and forces us to humiliation in these words:
"We think our civilisation near its meridian; but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star."
So "pagan" King, scientist, philanthropist, rich traveller, and philosopher seemed to have "sucked" the same conclusions from wide observation; the King only was without that abiding faith in the evolution of right which will end in the final establishment of universal contentment and happiness. The King saw only the bald fact; he could not see the final reign of law behind it.
My relations to the King, as a Hawaiian-born subject but an American by inheritance, put me under an obligation to him like that of the apprentice in the "Pirates of Penzance" who was bound until noon every day to an absolute loyalty to his piratical masters, but after that hour and until night was entirely free to circumvent and destroy them. As a Hawaiian Minister of State I was bound, for at least part of the time, to observe loyalty to the King and to Polynesian institutions, however primitive they were; for the monarchy and people were rather more pagan than civilised. In this regard I was under some obligation to take a hopeful view of the future of the race and to magnify its racial progress. But when relieved, like the pirate's apprentice, of the obligations of loyalty by my American inheritance, I was free in some degree to suggest and predict the swiftly coming end of Polynesian rule in the Islands, the causes for which were numerous and adequate. These views I freely expressed before the King.
As we neared our little kingdom in the early dawn, the vast volcanic mountain of Haleakala ("House of the Sun") loomed up on the left. Like the devout Hindus, who shouted "Ganga! Ganga!" when they saw the turbid waters of the Ganges as they approached Calcutta, we shouted, "It is home! It is Hawaii nei!"
The harbour of Honolulu was soon in sight. Arches wreathed in flowers spanned the streets; the "army" paraded, the natives wailed a childish welcome to their King and covered him with flowers. The royal band played "Home, Sweet Home!" the royal palms bowed their "Aloha;" the cocoanut-trees flung their yellow jewels from their tall tufts; the breakers pounded out their loyalty. The little military skeleton which had gently rattled around the world was sealed up for ever in its vault. At the Palace, which was an humble place, though it was soon replaced by an imposing building, the people massed, and again buried their King in a wilderness of flowers and scented vines. One who assumed to be the poet laureate delivered a mele, or ode, which the outspoken and vicious opposition Press said was only a part of "the elaborate bestialities of a decrepit paganism."
William N. Armstrong, after a Dinner given by King Kalakaua.
MELES, OR SONGS.1
KING KALAKAUA'S TOUR AROUND THE WORLD.
(No. 1.)
Arise! O Hawaii of Keawe!
Here is thy Chief of Chiefs!
Thy bud; thy blossom; and thy flower,
Thy chief indeed; O, Maui of Kama!
The blooming flower of Kakae,
The sacred choice of the Heavens!
Advance, ye shores of Piilani
(Shores of Lanai and Kahoolawe.)
Thou also, O! Molokai of Hina!
Oahu stands forth in the lead,
The loved land of Kakuihewa!
The chosen seat doth greet thee!
Flags wave gently in the breeze,
Cannons blare forth their roar;
And the entrance of Mamala re-echoes
Voices of song, and loud hurrahs;
Voices of joyous Welcome Home!
It was the journey of a great free Chief,
Who glanced at all things,
He stood on the highest of the heights;
And reached the four remote corners.
Come up, O Kauai of Mano!
With thy sun shining on Lehua
Let all bless and honour
Every one; O, ye People!
Join with the heavenly hosts;
Who have joined with us;
With our Sovereign Lord and King,
Hawaii's wreathed royal Diadem.
Long live Ka Lani (The King) the Chosen One!
Until the heights of the heavens are reached.
(No. 2.)
To Thee, O Sun, that shineth brightly,
O'er all the skirts of the globe,
Make known his royal worth,
Thy light shall reveal his glory,
He sought his wish with wisdom,
And beheld the hidden things of the world.
He witnessed the beauty of Himala, (Asia,)
The joyous rippling waters bore him on;
He beheld the mountain of great fragrance, (Fusiyama,)
Famed for its splendour and towering crest,
And thou, O Ka Lani, set high above,
Thou didst o'erpass the tabus of Tahiti, (of all foreign Lands.)
Uprose the angry sea,
And smoothed its wild flow for thee!
Reach forth to all the isles of the sea! (the Pacific.)
To be thy companions O Ka Lani!
Whilst thou journeyest, O King!
The spirit of Heaven was thy helper,
The morning star was thy guide.
Thy enemies fled before thee—
They speaking vainly against thee!
Long live Ka Lani,
To the farthest reach of the advancing world!
As we entered the Palace, from which we had departed ten months before, one might have heard the sharp click of the clasp which closed the girdle that, for the first time since the beginning of things, had been put around the earth by a ruling sovereign.
Footnote
1 Translation.
CHAPTER XXX
The End of the Monarchy — The King and His Divine Origin and Mission — Insists on Coronation — Ministers Resign — The King Resists Parliamentary Government — Confronted with the Bayonet and Yields — He Instigates Revolution, but Fails — Visits California and Dies — Liliuokalani His Successor — She Attempts to Make a New Constitution, and the Monarchy is Overthrown — Annexation to the United States — The Work of the Missionaries.
THESE memoirs would not be complete without a brief account of the effect of this royal tour upon the King's reign; for so
me reader may ask what became of this daring monarch who put a girdle around the earth?
There were a hundred causes which contributed to destroy his monarchy, the most of which were beyond his control, and there was, it may be said in truth, not one to preserve it. Its extinction, twelve years after his return, was due to the cold and inexorable law of political evolution, which even now is hardly understood. There was a conflict of races, the stronger Teutonic races against the weaker Polynesian. Although it was aggressive and made acutely so by the geographical situation of the islands at the crossways of the Pacific commerce, it was peaceful and bloodless; for of all weak races which have come in contact in any land whatsoever with the stronger races, the Hawaiians have suffered the least from injustice and physical dominance. On the other hand, they have been cared for and coddled by the whites to an unwholesome extent. The new conditions of commerce and industry created by the Anglo-Saxons overshadowed the Polynesians and caused their decay, as the growth of forest trees takes sunlight away from plants and grasses and withers them.
The King did not understand this law of evolution. He was like the majority of monarchs who have lost their thrones, or gone into exile, or been despatched by assassins. He did not see that his monarchy was indulgently tolerated by the Anglo-Saxons so long as it did not put in jeopardy their rigid ideas regarding the rights of persons and property and the administration of law.
Soon after his return the King began to do those things which would, in his opinion, strengthen his throne. As his native subjects were in a very great majority, he believed that if he increased their loyalty to himself he would be able to check the influence of the whites, whose resources and character he could not clearly comprehend. Beneath this, however, was the racial instinct that unconsciously suspected the whites.
He at once determined to have a coronation, though he had been on the throne for six years. Finding that the members of his Cabinet, who were white men, did not approve of such a useless and very expensive proceeding, he secretly went behind them to his native legislature and asked for $75,000 for a coronation. When I discovered this defiance of Ministerial rule I peremptorily resigned my office in the Cabinet, and the rest of my colleagues followed me.
King Kalakaua and his Military Staff. (On the Steps of his Palace, 1882.)
Thereupon the King appointed as his new Prime Minister an educated American named Gibson, who had been an adventurer in Sumatra, where he had been imprisoned by the Dutch government for sedition; he had also been a Mormon. He was a brilliant writer, and was full of political dreams regarding his own mission in Polynesia. He had encouraged the King to look upon himself as the Colossus of the Pacific, the one who would unite the half-savage tribes scattered through Oceanica into some federal union, of which he would be Primate.
The coronation now took place, for his new Ministers approved of it and the legislature provided the money. Its forms and ceremonies were composed out of what could be found in European books which described such events, mixed with Polynesian customs. It took place in a large pavilion. There were Bearers of the King's Jewels and Decorations; of the Sword of State, and the Crown, which was imported from England; Bearers of the Robes and the Torch; of the Royal Mantle, similar to the one which had such an eventful history during the tour, but of larger dimensions. The King appeared in a white helmet, and the Queen, an excellent woman, wore a diadem studded with diamonds, and a long train supported by the native ladies of her household. The Princes of the Blood were in glittering uniforms. The King crowned himself and again took the oath of office. The hard-headed white men looked on and smiled at this grotesque pageantry of whitewashed paganism. The natives enjoyed it, especially that part of it which gave them continual feasting and abundance of spirits.
In addition to this the King began secretly to instruct many of the natives in the dogma of his own divine origin, as a means of increasing their loyalty to him, and he renewed some of the ancient vile and licentious practices of the savage times.
Soon after I resigned from office I left the country, and did not again see the King during his lifetime. We held correspondence with each other, however, from time to time. On leaving him I once more advised him to act with great caution in dealing with the white men. I told him that I feared his conduct in choosing an irresponsible Minister would precipitate a revolution, and I predicted that it would come within three years. He replied that he could "take care of" any of his white subjects. The revolution came, however, within five years.
He had now to reckon with the "missionaries." The American missionaries were a body of men, mostly of New England origin, who landed in the islands in 1820 and gradually increased their numbers by immigration until there were about sixty of them. The majority were clergymen and college-bred men, and some of them were unusually able and wise. They were the Romanticists of the Evangelical Church, inspired with an intense desire to save the heathen from everlasting torments. They accepted the dogma of the churches that the heathen, though ignorant of the Gospel, were doomed eternally unless they repented. They did not claim to be agents of civilisation directly, but promoted such forms of civilised life as aided them in propagating the Gospel. For this purpose they established schools, reduced the savage language to writing, and, under their large influence with the chiefs, gradually established wholesome laws, abolished the feudal system, and introduced the American system of jurisprudence so far as it was practicable. Their main purpose was not the establishment of an American colony, but the conversion of the heathen. Forty-five years later they believed that their mission was fulfilled, and they voluntarily ceased to be an organised body. The children of these missionaries, numbering some hundreds, born in the islands, became to a large extent permanent residents, professional men, merchants, and planters; they furnished a larger proportion of college-bred men than any community of the same number in America.1 With them were associated by marriage, business interests, and religious sympathy, a number of-Anglo-Saxon immigrants from the mainland. Those who affiliated with the natives by marriage, those who found law and order irksome, those who disliked conservative rule, opposed the "missionaries," as they designated this class of persons, though the original missionaries no longer lived. The name stood for a political class.
The "missionaries" born in the islands had a strong affection for the monarchy in spite of its grotesque Polynesian ear-marks. But when the King, with the assent of his Prime Minister, refused to be governed by the legislature, insisted on personal rule, and became involved in some discreditable affairs, they arose promptly and confronted the King with the bayonet. He instantly yielded to their demands and proclaimed a new Constitution, which made his government Ministerial and subject to the legislature, as it is in England. But he was indignant at this coercion, and within two years secretly contrived a popular revolution, under the leadership of one of the young natives who had been educated in the military schools of Italy; the object of this revolution being to restore the old Constitution, with its strong royal prerogatives and personal rule. The "missionaries" again rose, put down this revolution with their arms, and, with perhaps unwise conservatism, permitted the King to hold the throne.
Within two years of this event, the King again visited the State of California, where he died of pneumonia, and his sister, the Princess Liliuokalani, took his place on the throne.
It is not necessary to discuss the character of King Kalakaua. It is largely revealed in the incidents of his tour around the world. It was his misfortune to have been a Polynesian who with sufficient excuse failed to understand the character of the Anglo-Saxon. He was as wise as the majority of men who have been rulers, but in thought, inheritance, and instinct lie was an alien to his white subjects.
His sister, who now succeeded him, had all his defects of character, and, in addition to them, a blind stubbornness of will which he did not have. She had sworn to support the Constitution, but soon engaged in a conspiracy to overthrow it and establish one which increased her persona
l prerogatives. The "missionaries" again rose in arms. They were tired of irresponsible Polynesian rule. They were no longer willing to exact new promises from the Queen and preserve the monarchy. They abolished it, organised a republic, and co-operated in the annexation of the islands to the United States.
There are now those living who have seen the little kingdom rise out of savagery and paganism, culminate in Kalakaua's reign, and become extinct within one generation. The naturalists say that the mosquito is born, becomes a father and grandfather, and dies, within a day. Such also was the brief life of this monarchy when measured by the average standards of national life. But it will nevertheless stand in history as the solitary community, of that boundless region of Oceanica, that presented all the functions of a complete government, and was in good and regular standing with the family of nations.
More romantic, however, than the brief history of this little kingdom, is the story of the missionaries. They builded better than they knew. The world has now, in a large measure, outgrown the theological dogmas which prompted them to leave America and go into exile in "the darkness;" their story of saving the perishing souls of the heathen from everlasting perdition has passed into the literature of curious beliefs. But unconsciously they laid the foundations for a high civilisation in which the natives took little part. They established firmly and permanently in these islands the Anglo-Saxon institutions for the regulation and protection of human rights; the trial by jury and the common law, with an independent judiciary; and the watchwords of political liberty were as common in these tropical valleys as they were at the base of Bunker's Hill.
When annexation to the United States took place in 1898, the American flag did not rise over a community of aliens, but over one of original Anglo-Saxon force, born under the Southern Cross, which had alone for half a century held itself intact against alien influences. At the tap of the Federal drum it wheeled into line and took up its march to the music of the Union without an awkward step, and is now the advanced picket line of American civilisation in the Pacific.
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