Hawaii Holomua, Volume II, Number 36, 15 February 1894 — After the Tariff, Hawaii. [ARTICLE]

After the Tariff, Hawaii.

Washington, Jan. 31,--What will be done when the tariff bill is out of the House is a question already engaging the attention of the members. A member of the Committee on Rules to-day said he believed the first thing the House would take up, would be the Hawaiian question. "I think the bill to coin the seiguiorage of the silver in the treasury vaults will be compelled to wait until the discussion over the Hawaiian affair has been exhausted. That will require more than the two days which it was originally intended should be devoted to it."

Representative Rayner of Maryland, who is one of the Democratic members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and has given much thought to the Hawaiian complication, said to-day, "I think this matter will be taken up as soon as the tariff debate is closed. The whole subject has been submitted to Congress by the President, and it is absolutely

necessary to consider it. Aside from the questions relating to the conduct of Mr. Stevens and the still broader question of annexation, the practical question which we will have to deal with as to our future course in connection is with the Provisional Government, or whatever other Government may succeed it. Evidently our relations with the islands, so far as the Department of State is concerned, must be determined. The recognition of a de facto Government is all right and proper, so long as the de facto Government continues. But we must decide upon some settled line of policy in reference to the whole question that is involved in this controversy. We could not abandon the matter if we tried, because Congress must take some action, some proceeding, which will be recognized as final, not only by our own people, but by the Government of Hawaii as well." This was all that Mr. Rayner cared to say, inasmuch as the subject will soon be before the House, and he is expected to speak upon it from his Committee. It is well known, however, that the line of argument that Mr. Rayner and other Democratic members of the committee will take will be that a great wrong was committed in the overthrow of the monarch; that Mr. Stevens was one of the moving spirits in the conspiracy; that he was guilty of violating his duty as minister, and all the usage of international law in heading the movement to overthrow the Government to which he was accredited. That even admitting the Provisional Government was brought into existence through the efforts of the United States minister, that Government must be recognized by the wishes and suffrages of the people.