Kalakana's Trip Around the World [pp. 644-652]

KALAKAUA'S TRIP AROUND THE WORLD.
the Hampton Normnal and Agricultural
School, and met his old friend, General
S. C. Armstrong, the brother of his Minister. After visiting the horse breeding
farms of Kentucky, he proceeded to San
San Francisco, and returned to his own
kingdom, where he was received with
triumphal arches and much cordiality.
What then? What good, if any, came
of this sweeping trip about the world,
in which the monarch of the smallest of
the kingdoms met his royal brethren, the
rulers of vast empires. How much did
he profit by it? He had secured for himself, his suit, and his friends, many
"decorations," and he had seen and been
s aluted by great navies, but had he
brought back with him clearer notions
about good government?
Soon after his return he proposed an
expensive coronation. He had been on
the throne seven years, but believed that
every self-respecting monarch preferred
to have an uneasy head with a crown on it,
rather than be placed on the throne without that precious emblem. His ministers
opposed the coronation, and the King began
to circumvent his cabinet. In the
course of several months the King began
to apply freely the principles and tactics
of personal government. These and
other transactions broke up the cabinet.
On resigning office in May, I882, I,
who still remained on friendly terms with
him, had several conversations with him
on the future of the Hawaiian people, and
said to him substantially this: "The wealth and intelligence of your
subjects is with the white people, you
have frequently said the natives are
thriftless, lazy, and you cannot trust
them. Your case, the rule over whites
by a Polynesian, is rare, and is possible
only so long as you rule them well. The
Anglo-Saxon is a tiger when he finds that
government disturbs his right to property
or liberty. You have great and rare
luck in having a large income, a beautiful palace, and a lot of white subjects,
Americans, English, and Germans, who
are perfectly satisfied with your reign if
you will only rule wisely. The kings of
the world have usually had bad advisers.
The Hawaiian kings have had, from the
days when the missionaries landed, good
advisers, disinterested men. Your position
is always a perilous one, because white
men mistrust the weaker races."
He replied substantially: "The white
people do not like me. They wish to control me. The majority of my subjects are
natives, and they will always back me
up. If I give up to the whites, they may
take advantage of me, I am safer with
the Kanakas."
I said: "Then you will have revolution.
As things are now going, there must be
revolution before long, before many
years. Your native subjects are thriftless and will back you up in anything
you may do, because you will fill them
full of feed and promises. Finally you
or they will do something very questionable, and then the whites may drive you
into the taro patches."
His reply was that he thought I took
extreme views and that he knew how to
govern well.
These conversations were not heated
or bitter. Once he laughed and said,
"My Attorney General talks more treason
than any man in the country."
We parted in friendship, and I returned
to the United States. I never saw him
again.
Five years after this interview the
revolution of I887 came, and he, at the
point of the white man's bayonet, gave
a new constitution, which put limitations
on his own authority. On writing to
him, after this event, I recalled our conversation and repeated to him my con
650