Moreover, there is no excuse for annexation, in the desire of the people.  The present Government is mild, just, and liked by the people.  They can easily make it cheaper whenever they want to.  The native people are very strongly opposed to annexation; they have a strong feeling of nationality, and considerable jealousy of foreign influence.  Annexation to our own or any other country would be without their consent.

As to the residents of foreign birth, a few of them favor annexation to the United States; but only a few.  A large majority would oppose it as strenuously as the native people.  Most of the planters see that it would break up their labor system, demoralize the workmen, and probably for years check the production of sugar.

One thing is certain, however.  If the Islands ever offer themselves to any foreign power, it will be to the United States.  Their people, foreign as well as native, look to us as their neighbors and friends; and the king last summer blurted out one day when too much wine had made him imprudent, this truth:  that if annexation came, it must be to the United States.

As I write a negotiation has been opened with the United States Government, for the purpose of offering us Pearl River in exchange for a reciprocity treaty.  Pearl River is an extensive, deep, and well-protected bay, about ten miles from Honolulu.  It would answer admirably for a naval station; and if the United States were a second-rate power likely to be bullied by other nations, we might need a naval station in the Pacific Ocean.  In our present condition, when no single power dares to make war with us, and when, unless we become shamelessly aggressive, no alliance of European powers against us for purposes of war is possible, the chief use of distant naval stations appears to me to be as convenient out-of-the-way places for wasting the public money.  Pearl River would be an admirable spot for a dozen pleasant sinecures, and the expenditure of three or four millions of money.  It seems to me, therefore, that it would be a dear bargain.  For the accommodation of merchant steamers and ships and their repair, Honolulu offers sufficient facilities.  There are ingenious American mechanics there who have even taken a frigate upon a temporary dry-dock, and repaired her hull.

[Illustration:  HULA-HULA, OR DANCING-GIRLS.]

But justice, kindly feeling, and a due regard for our future interests in the Pacific Ocean ought to induce us to establish at once a reciprocity treaty with the Hawaiian Government.  We should lose but little revenue; and should make good that loss by the greater market which would be opened for our own products, in the Islands.  Such a treaty would bring more capital to the Islands, increase their prosperity, and, at the same time, bind them still more closely and permanently to us.  It would pave the way to annexation, if that should ever become advisable.