Politics in the Sandwich Islands.

THE history-so brief and so picturesque-of the little septinsular kingdom in the North Pacific has become latterly pretty well known, both here and on the Continent. Its king has his place among "Men of the Time," and the Gotha Almanack gives statistics of his Hawaiian dynasty and national resources. The importance of the geographical position of the islands is claiming increased attention with the Governments of this continent and of America, and the expected visit of the young and widowed Queen Emma to England next spring will no doubt draw forth our sympathies, as well as our curiosity. During the past year, treaties of friendship and commerce have been negotiated between several continental Governments and Hawaii, and others are in progress.

In November, 1863, the fourth king bearing the name of Kaméhaméha died prematurely, after an enlightened reign of nine years, yet before quite attaining the age of thirty. He was succeeded on the throne by a brother, two years his senior, who assumed, on his accession, the family name of Kaméhaméha V. With his brother, this prince had, in 1850, visited England, France, and Belgium. They spoke and wrote our language fluently; read our history; studied our laws; mingled in our society; and saw events through European spectacles. What impressions of politics, etiquette, and religion, they thus acquired were ineffaceable in their minds, and thereafter influenced all their conduct.

By the articles of the constitution given to the people in 1852 by Kaméhaméha III., it was incumbent on the successor to the vacant throne to take an oath that he would maintain the constitution of the kingdom whole and inviolate, and would govern in conformity therewith. Kaméhaméha V. abstained from taking this oath. There were features in the existing constitution which were, to his mind, objectionable, and he resolved to seize the opportunity for making reforms, and bringing the kingdom into further accordance with the most enlightened European monarchies. During his brother's reign the present ruler of Hawaii had occupied the post of minister of interior. He had shown great aptitude for business, and had had leisure and means for observing the working of a system which contained the elements of democracy and puritanism. It will be necessary to describe, in a few words, the growth of this political system.

Up to the year 1839 the Hawaiian Islands were governed by an absolute monarch, and upon strictly feudal principles. In that year the

In the vocal languago of Polynesia this name has the soft pronunciation of Ka-maia-maia,

efforts of the American missionaries and ex-missionaries, who had given much useful assistance in governing the country, worked so far on the patriotic and bon-vivant king, Kaméhaméha III., as to induce him to sign a Bill of Rights, and, the following year, to grant a constitution, by which absolute rule was yielded up, and irresponsible power exchanged for government by the three estates of king, nobles, and people.

The king had never been out of his own small dominions. He had to be guided by the teaching and advice of the active-minded men who had already volunteered to assist in holding the reins of government, and who showed that they would not be averse to take the ribbons entirely into their own hands upon occasion. But at that time the king's advisers did not prompt to greater change than the conversion of absolutism into limited monarchy.

The scheme of government thus produced was naturally a hybrid one. Its promoters were Americans; they were missionaries, or persons who, having been missionaries, had left that calling for official or officious life. The constitution was a mosaic, to which the Pentateuch, the British Government, and the American Declaration of Independence each contributed a part. Yet, in spite of manifold defects, it was a revolution in the right direction. It lasted twelve years; and under it the nation advanced in civilization and prosperity.

The administration consisted of four departments; there was a minister of interior affairs, who was also premier; a minister of foreign relations, of finance, of public instruction; and an attorney-general. In 1845 the government was joined and strengthened by Mr. Wyllie, a Scotch gentleman, who had been well known in London, and was a friend of General Miller, the English commissioner in the Sandwich Islands. Statute laws were passed, and a little tinkering of the constitution began.

It seemed the fate of all political opinion, when acclimatized in Hawaii, to "suffer a sea change." We have seen a tyrant taking up limited monarchy, democrats from the United States constituting a kingdom; and now we are to see an early and ardent member of the Reform Club converted into a staunch Conservative, and an American attorney-general writing himself in one of his letters "a rank Tory."

With the infusion of fresh blood, it came to pass that, in 1850, the king recommended a new constitution, and appointed a commission of three persons to frame a new model. It was perfected, and, in 1852, was signed by the king, who died in something less than two years afterwards. This constitution was an advance on the former one; but a good deal of the Levitical element and some revolutionary rags remained in it. Dr. Judd was one of the three commissioners, his coadjutors being the chief, Joane Ii, and the Chief Justice Lee. The two former of this triad will make their reappearance hereafter.

It happened that while much discussion was going on in Honolulu about the proposed new constitution, the Hawaiian consulate in China was represented by the senior member of the commercial house of Jardine

and Company. At the same time, Sir John Bowring was governor of Hong Kong; and a correspondence was brought about between the latter and Mr. Wyllie on the same subject, and a draft of the constitution was sent to Sir John for his opinion. The editor of Jeremy Bentham objected to the opening sentence, in which it is asserted that all men are created free and equal. Bentham had himself been the correspondent of several of the American Presidents; and in his "Critical Examination of the Declaration of Rights," exposed the pretension that "all men are born free and equal." "No man ever was, is, or will be, born free; all are born helpless children, in a state of absolute subjection to parents, and, in many countries as slaves, in vassalage to owners; and as to equality, the statement is absurd, the condition of no two men, to say nothing of all, being equal, in the many gradations which exist, of wealth and poverty, servants and masters, influence and position." Sir John, who had been Bentham's most intimate friend and executor, quoted the views of his master, which also appeared to his own mind incontestable. In spite, however, of any efforts which Mr. Wyllie could make, supported by the China correspondence, the constitution commenced with the old assertion, "God hath created all men free and equal." Article 12 pronounced that "No person who imports a slave, or slaves, into the king's dominions, shall ever enjoy any civil or political rights in this realm." Article 19 prescribed, "All elections of the people shall be by ballot; " and Article 78 established manhood-suffrage. Moreover, the king's power was checked and controlled by the strange institution of the Kuhina-Nui-an invention which, if borrowed from any other nation, must have come from Japan. This “regulator" to the government machine, who stood above ministers, and, as it were, on the uppermost step of the throne, might be a man or a woman-indeed, was generally the latter. As she was to be the king's special counsellor, and was to have powers almost equal to the king's, with whom she would necessarily require to have long closetings on State affairs, she must have been a discouragement to a queen of jealous temperament, and not a little detrimental to the progress of business, since the constitution provides that "the king and the kuhina-nui shall have a negative on each other's public acts." Among his, or her, miscellaneous offices, the kuhina-nui had charge of the great seal of the kingdom, the royal standard, and the national flag. Also, in case of the king's death or minority, this solid shadow had to perform all duties, and exercise all powers ordinarily vested in the king. Such were some of the features of the constitution which existed till August, 1864.

Kaméhaméha V. came to the throne, as we have related, in November, 1863, and commenced the exercise of his functions, but without taking the oath prescribed by, and in favour of, his then constitution. Mr. Wyllie was made minister of foreign affairs; an Englishman with whom he had been long intimate, and whose devotion to the Hawaiian nation was undoubted, received the portfolio of interior;

a French gentleman, formerly vice-consul for France, had charge of the finances; and his attorney-general was an American, who, like others of his nation on the bench or at the bar, was loyal, clear-sighted, and had definite views of government. It was not a bad team for the first stage out of town, and the start was promising.

The king had determined not to take the oath. From after occurrences, it is to be inferred that there were differences of opinion in the cabinet on this subject. The attorney-general, and the minister of foreign relations, however, appear to have been consistent in their support of the king's view, and a convention was resolved on to amend the constitution.

The word convention has to English ears an uncanny ring. It reminds them of Paris in 1792, and of England in 1848. Four of the five points in the charter then clamoured for here, already existed in the Hawaiian constitution; viz. the ballot, universal suffrage, non-property qualification, and paid representatives. Annual parliaments were excluded because it was more convenient to members to assemble biennially. Now Kaméhaméha V. wished to get rid, by means of a national vote, of universal suffrage, and to replace it by a qualification based on income and property, united to a certain advance in mental acquirements and moral fitness.

The reason why a convention was necessary to the king's purpose was this-that though the constitution contained power for the legislature to amend it, the consent of two biennial parliaments was necessary to effect any reform. Such a delay was a strain on the king's patience, and he remembered that he had not yet taken what may be called the coronation oath. But the decisions of a specially convened body might be followed immediately by a session of parliament, and thus the reconstruction of the State might be completed within three or four months. This was the motive which decided the king's actions. A convention was accordingly summoned by proclamation-political feeling instantly responding throughout the islands. The prime objects of the king and his advisers were known, or felt to be, to destroy the radical element in the constitution, to base electoral privilege on a property qualification, and to give a larger place in the State to the king, allowing him to govern as well as reign. The native, long accustomed to the feudal yoke, felt no aversion to this design; but it alarmed the minds of many settled foreigners-the American missionaries (but not all) being especially aroused at the prospect of absolutism and aristocracy, Puseyism and Popery. They raised an outcry in their districts, and led the people to think it their duty to send, not representatives, but delegates to the convention.

The king in the meantime was not idle. He made a progress through his dominions, attended by his faithful foreign-office minister. They delivered speeches-some judicious, some inopportune-and on the 7th of July, 1864, the convention was opened by the king, who, before proceeding to the court-house, attended service at the Episcopal church.

The business of the session began the following day, the three estates

sitting in the same chamber. The composition of the convention was as follows:-First, the king-president. Second, nobles, sixteen in number, headed by the kuhina-nui: of the remaining fifteen nobles eleven were natives, two Britons, and two Americans. Third, delegates, twenty-seven in number; the white skins and native blood being about equally divided. Judge Robertson was appointed vice-president; and M. Varigny and the attorney-general, though neither nobles nor representatives, attended, like the French Minister without portfolio, to assist in the debates. The House appointed Mr. Judd to be secretary; Mr. Judd named a native chaplain, and Anglo-Saxons for interpreter, reporter, and serjeant-at-arms.

Of the nobles, as might be expected, the very large majority seconded the king's views. One of this estate, however, possessed of the short but emphatic name of Ii, who had been one of the three commissioners engaged to construct the constitution of 1852, was less tractable and more democratic than his peers. He was also more talkative; and both from the frequency of his being on his legs, and from the two conspicuous vowels which composed his name, he quite fulfilled the vulgar definition of egotism, viz. letting the private I be too much in the public eye.

The king, in his opening address, pronounced with great facility in English and in his native tongue, briefly informed the convention of the objects for which he had summoned them; and in all subsequent speeches he used the bi-lingual method. The reports published under the name of The Convention are printed in parallel columns of the two languages.

"History repeats itself." The very question which so long agitated the assembled States-General in 1789, whether the three orders should sit in one or in separate chambers, excited in Honolulu long and obstinate discussion. It was nearly a week before the question was settled. The conclusion arrived at was that the three estates should sit and debate in one chamber. After which the rules were debated and carried; that relating to voting being that there should be united voting on the rules or by-laws, but constitutional subjects should be introduced by the representatives and put to the vote among themselves. If a resolution failed there in consequence of a minority, its quietus was made. If it passed the lower house, the votes of the nobles were taken on it; and after a majority of that estate, it was submitted to the king for his approval or veto.

Comparing these proceedings with those of the States-General in Paris, we see that whereas the Tiers Etat demanded that their "brothers the nobles" should sit and vote in one, and that the People's Chamber, the wish of the Hawaiian representatives was rather to vote apart. Five weeks were required for the popular victory at the Luxembourg; nearly a week was occupied in Honolulu.

The rules established for discussion were good, and there was considerable ability shown in the management of the debates. The weakest part of the proceedings of this convention was, that when a question had been apparently definitively settled and a resolution passed one day, it was occasionally re-opened the next, under the form of a new resolution.