Comly to John M. Kapena, May 31, 1879

Mr. Comly to Mr. Kapena.

Your Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of dispatch, and your supplementary dispatch with inclosures, and your note, “private and unofficial,” all under date of May 21.

I have delayed this note, hoping to include further information; but as it is already ten days since your dispatches were written, I will no longer delay.

I beg your excellency will accept my acknowledgments for the promptness and comprehensiveness of your reply, which I hold under further consideration. Your excellency’s private and unofficial note contains matter of a very suggestive character for reflection, and which seems to me of sufficient interest to be included in the official consideration of the subject. You will observe, however, that your excellency has somewhat enlarged the scope of my observations which speak of the native (American) producer as “already sufficiently weighted,” not overweighted, by Hawaiian competition.

Renewing, &c., I remain &c.,