Aaron S. Daggett to Randall L. Gibson, December 13, 1883

Mr. Daggett to Mr. Gibson.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s communication of the 10th instant, in reply to my letter of the 7th, relating to certain exclusive agreements entered into by the Hawaiian Government for the transportation of Chinese laborers to these islands.

You admit the essential facts upon which is based the complaint of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, but deny that any injustice has thereby been suffered by that corporation, or that any treaty obligation with the United States has been contravened by the Hawaiian Government, either in granting to the Pacific Mail and Occidental and Oriental Steamship Companies the exclusive right to transport Chinese laborers to the Hawaiian Islands, or in less than three months thereafter transferring that privilege to the Oceanic Steamship Company, coupled with an alleged disposition and purpose by the latter to re transfer the franchise in its fullness to a line of exclusively English steamers.

Your excellency refers at some length to the many favors heretofore granted to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company by the Hawaiian Government, and assumes that gratitude should have closed its mouth of complaint. I fail to observe the pertinence of this recital.

The attention of the Hawaiian Government is directed to the exclusive agreement under notice, not for the benefit solely of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, but in the interest of any and every American steamship or steamship company capable of properly performing a service from the equal advantages of which they would be unjustly debarred by special concessions. Hence, the favors accorded the Pacific Mail Steamship Company by the Hawaiian Government cannot be considered in connection with the broad question involved, nor can the implied ingratitude of that corporation be avenged upon American commerce or be made the pretext for a violation of treaty obligations.

Your excellency assumes that “the privilege, or rather opportunity, afforded by His Majesty’s Government cannot have been of great consequence to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, since, after enjoying it for four months, they have not availed themselves of the permission nor brought a single Chinese immigrant directly from Hong-Kong to this Kingdom.” Although but of small consequence, this assumption, I am persuaded, will be found less tenable if your excellency will consider it in connection with a somewhat more concise statement of the facts, namely, that your letter to His Majesty’s consul-general at Hong-Kong, under date of July 14, 1883, giving effect to the agreement with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, could scarcely have reached that officer before the middle of August, while your note to the Honolulu agents of that company giving notice of a discontinuance of the privilege was dated October 15, 1883.

But, however the annulment of this agreement may have affected the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, your excellency seems to find justification for it in the alleged advantage which would accrue to the Hawaiian Government in the transfer of the service to a line of steamers capable of entering the harbor of Honolulu, and which would “be in every respect a domestic Hawaiian line.” Considering that the contract was transferred to a company without steamers to perform the service, and without specific agreement as to the character of the vessels to be constructed or chartered to perform it, and that one of the first acts of that company after securing the contract was to offer it for a consideration to an established line of steamers, the assumed advantages to the Hawaiian Government of the transfer of the agreement can scarcely be regarded as sufficiently substantial to sustain either the breach of a private contract or the violation of a public treaty.

The position assumed by your excellency that neither the sixth nor any other article of the treaty of 1849 has been contravened by the Hawaiian Government in entering into and seeking to give force to these exclusive agreements, the last of which involves its probable transfer to a line of English steamers, does not seem to be in harmony with the second article of that treaty, which provides that “the subjects or citizens of any other state shall not enjoy any favor, privilege, or immunity whatever in matters of commerce and navigation which shall not also at the same time be extended to the subjects or citizens of the other contracting party.” Can these stipulations be faithfully observed by the Hawaiian Government in making exclusive contracts with particular lines of vessels for the transportation to these islands of Chinese immigrants—in making exclusive contracts which their holders consider legitimate subjects of barter? It is not enough that a transfer of the contract of the Oceanic Steamship Company to a line of English steamers “is not warranted by any authorization “of the Hawaiian Government. The emergency of the situation would be more completely met by the information that no such transfer would be permitted.

But, in dwelling somewhat upon matters of specific complaint, I fear that I have failed to make clear, as was the purpose in my first communication to you on the subject, the views of my Government in relation to these discriminating contracts or agreements. Permit me now to say, without reference to any alleged breach of contract, that it is not asked that the Pacific Mail and Occidental and Oriental Steamship Companies be restored in their agreement with the Hawaiian Government, since it was entered into in derogation of treaty rights affecting American interests. Nor is the contract with the Oceanic Steamship Company any the less repugnant to treaty obligations existing between the United States and the Hawaiian Government.

The gravamen of the matter at issue is not that the contract was taken, either with or without cause, from one company or two companies and given to another, but that such an agreement was made at all. Nor would an exclusive contract with a Hawaiian company be admissible, since the according of an exclusive and discriminating privilege in the premises to any one company owning a particular line of ships, whether American, Hawaiian, or foreign to both countries, is believed to be unjust, and, I am instructed to say, inconsistent with the due maintenance of the treaty of 1849.

It will gratify me to learn that these views accord so closely with those of His Majesty’s Government that it will feel it an act of justice, as well as friendship, to the people of the United States to set aside as unauthorized any discriminating agreement now existing for the exclusive transportation of Chinese immigrants to the Hawaiian Islands.

I have, &c.,