HARRISON AND PROSPERITY-Continued. exceeding the value of the imports by $202,875,686. A comparison of the value of our exports for 1892 with the annual average for the ten years prior to 1891 shows an excess of $265,142,651, or of 34.65 per cent. IMPORTS. The value of our imports of merchandise for 1892, which was $829,402,462, also exceeded the annual average value of the ten years prior to 1891 by $135,215,940. During the fiscal year 1892 the value of imports free of duty amounted to $457,999,658, the largest aggregate in the history of our commerce. The value of the imports of merchandise entered free of duty in 1892 was 55.35 per cent. of the total value of imports, as compared with 43.35 per cent. in 1891 and 33.66 per cent. in 1890. COASTWISE TRADE. In our coastwise trade a most encouraging development is in progress, there having been in the last four years an increase of 16 per cent. In internal commerce the statistics show that no such period of prosperity has ever before existed. The freight carried in the coastwise trade of the Great Lakes in 1890 aggregated 28,295,959 tons. On the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and tributaries in the same year the traffic aggregated 29,405,046 tons, and the total vessel tonnage passing through the Detroit River during that year was 21,684,000 tons. The vessel tonnage entered and cleared in the foreign trade of London during 1890 amounted to 13,480,767 tons, and of Liverpool 10,941,800 tons, a total for these two great shipping ports of 24,422,568 tons, only slightly in excess of the vessel tonnage passing through the Detroit River. And it should be said that the season for the Detroit River was but 228 days, while, of course, in London and Liverpool the season was for the entire year. The vessel tonnage passing through the St. Mary's Canal for the fiscal year 1892 amounted to 9,828.874 tons, and the freight tonnage of the Detroit River is estimated for that year at 25,000,000 tons, against 23,209,619 tons in 1891. The aggregate traffic on our railroads for the year 1891 amounted to 704,398,609 tons of freight, compared with 691,344,437 tons in 1890, an increase of 13,054,172 tons. SAVINGS BANKS. Another indication of the general prosperity of the country is found in the fact that the number of depositors in savings banks increased from 693,870 in 1860 to 4,258,893 in 1890, an increase of 513 per cent., and the amount of deposits from $149,277,504 in 1860 to HARRISON AND PROSPERITY-Continued. $1,524,844,506 in 1890, an increase of 921 per cent, In 1891 ha amount of deposits in savings banks was $1,623,079,749. It is esti mated that 90 per cent. of these deposits represent the savings of wage-earners. The bank clearances for nine months ending September 30. 1891, amounted to $41,049,390,808. For the same months in 1892 they amounted to $45,189,601,947, an excess for the nine months of $4,140,211,139. WORK AND WAGES. There has never been a time in our history when work was so abundant or when wages were as high, whether measured by the currency in which they are paid or by their power to supply the necessaries and comforts of life. It is true that the market prices of cotton and wheat have been low. It is one of the unfavorable incidents of agriculture that the farmer cannot produce upon orders. He must sow and reap in ignorance of the aggregate production of the year, and is peculiarly subject to the depreciation which follows overproduction. But, while the fact I have stated is true, as to the crops mentioned, the general average of prices has been such as to give to agriculture a fair participation in the general prosperity. The value of our total farm products has increased from $1,363,646,866 in 1860 to $4,500,000,000 in 1891, as estimated by statisticians, an increase of 230 per cent. The number of hogs January 1, 1891, was 50.625,106 and their value $210,193,925; on January 1, 1892, the number was 52,398,019 and the value $241,031,415. On January 1. 1891, the number of cattle was 36,875,648 and the value $544,127,908; on January 1, 1892, the number was 37,651,239 and the value $570,749,155. If any are discontented with their state here; if any believe that wages or prices, the returns for honest toil, are inadequate, they should not fail to remember that there is no other country in the world where the conditions that seem to them hard would not be accepted as highly prosperous. The English agriculturist would be glad to exchange the returns of his labor for those of the American farmer, and the Manchester workmen their wages for those of their fellows at Fall River. PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. I believe that the protective system, which has now for something more than thirty years continuously prevailed in our legislation, has been a mighty instrument for the development of our na tional werth and a most powerful agerer in protecting the homes of our werkingmen from the invasion of want. I have felt a most HARRISON AND PROSPERITY-Continued. solicitous interest to preserve to our working people rates of wages that would not only give daily bread but supply a comfortable margin for those home attractions and family comforts and enjoy. ments without which life is neither hopeful nor sweet. They are American citizens-a part of the great people for whom our Constitution and Government were framed and instituted-and it cannot be a perversion of that Constitution to so legislate as to preserve in their homes the comfort, independence, loyalty, and sense of interest in the Government which are essential to good citizenship in peace, and which will bring this stalwart throng, as in 1861, to the defense of the flag when it is assailed. HATS AND CAPS-Not Including Wool Hats, 1890. No. 186. HAWAII-A Scrap of History Concerning the Struggle in, After the Queen had been Dethroned. No. 187. On receiving Blount's report, Mr. Stevens was recalled and Mr. Willis was appointed American Minister. He was accredited to the Provisional Government, and bore a communication from President Cleveland to President Dole, who was addressed as "My great and good friend." Neither Congress nor the people had the slightest suspicion of the secret instructions he bore. On the 18th of December the President sent a message to Congress. In this he announced his intention to repair the wrong done to Queen Liliuokalani by restoring her to the throne. The grounds upon which he adopted this policy and announced this purpose were that the force to which the Queen's Government yielded was that of the United States, and not any force possessed by the Committee of Safety and the revolutionists. That the United States troops were landed not to protect American life and property, but to promote and secure the overthrow of the Queen's Government and the substitution of another that would offer to the United States a treaty of annexation. That Minister Stevens, in having HAWAII-Continued. the troops landed and in his recognition of the Provisional Government, acted in bad faith to the Queen, as well as in gross violation of his duty to his own Government. And that good faith, the highest duty of a Republic, and a due regard for our national character required that we should endeavor to repair the wrong. But the President did not stop here. He had instructed Mr. Willis, his Minister to the islands, to aid in overthrowing the Provisional Government and in restoring the Queen, upon the condition of pardon and clemency by her to her former subjects who had overthrown her power. But he naively admits: "The check which my plans have thus encountered has prevented their presentation to the members of the Provisional Government, while unfortunate public misrepresentations of the situation and exaggerated statements of our people have obviously injured the prospects of successful Executive mediation." A month before this message, Secretary Gresham's letter to the President had been made public, in which this purpose of restoring the Queen was foreshadowed. The amazement, indignation, and chagrin of the country were unbounded. Men of all parties, and the press, almost without exception, denounced the policy. But the message disclosed more. It showed that while accredited to the Provisional Government, Mr. Willis was instructed to enter into secret negotiations with the Queen, and to promise her the intervention of the United States; and this he was to conceal from the Government to which he was accredited. To an honorable gentleman like Mr. Willis, to be thus compelled to act the part of a secret conspirator against a Republic in favor of a monarchy, against the men of his own blood in favor of the native race, must have been most humiliating; and all the more so for the reason that it was in open violation of established International Law. HAWAII–Birth of a New Government-A New Fourth of July-An Enjoyable Occasion, No. 188. [Special Correspondence of the Evening Star.] "Honolulu, July 10, 1894. "A real and happy change has passed over this community since a week ago. The Republic of Hawaii has been inaugurated; the Government has passed from its provisional and unsettled stage into a permanent and stable form. The transition has been effected with almost unhoped-for speed and security. There was unlooked HAWAII-Continued. for unanimity and enthusiasm in support of the procedure. We find ourselves at once transferred from a tossing sea of uncertainties and threatening contingencies to what seems to be a quiet anchorage in harbor. There is in consequence a prevailing feeling of gratulation and returning confidence." No. 189. HAWAU-Finance. Accounts are kept in United Hawaii has no gold coins of its own. States dollars, divided into 100 cents. in the country and are received by the Treasury at the following rates: Hawaii has also a paper currency redeemable at par in gold or silver dollars. From and after the 1st day of December, 1884, the gold coins of the United States of America were standard and legal tender at their nominal value in the payment of all debts, public and private, within the Hawaiian Kingdom. The standard silver coins of the United States of America and the silver coins of the Hawaiian Kingdom, from and after December 1 1884, were a legal tender a their nominal value for any amount not exceeding $10 in any one payment. STATISTICS, MARCH 2, 1895. Importation of gold coin during the calendar year 1894, $602,000, United States gold. Importation of silver coin, $6,700, United States silver. Approximate stock of gold coin and bullion in the country at the close of the calendar year 1894, $4,000,000. Approximate stock of silver coin and bullion in the country at the close of the calendar year 1894, $1,000,vuu. Government notes outstanding at the end of 1894, $312,000. Average premium of gold as compared with the actual currency of the country for the year, about 1 per cent. |