The Story of Hawaii (Illustrated Edition). Fowke Gerard

forts might be garrisoned. Government storehouses built. The amount of money to be expended will be but a feather in comparison with the almost incalculable amount of wealth that will result upon the completion of these objects.'* So, for the last halfcentury and more. United States naval officers have dwelt on the limitless strategic importance of this remarkable harbour, which actually came under American domination, not when the Islands were annexed under President McKinley, but when the Reciprocity Treaty was carried through during the administration of President Grant. Pearl Harbour, eight miles west of Honolulu, is connected with the open sea by a narrow channel only. It contains 10 square miles of navigable water that is absolutely calm in any weather. The only harbour of real importance in the Islands, it is much finer than any on the Pacific slope of the mainland. The difficulty in making it practicable lay in the shallow bar at the entrance and in the tortuous channel leading to the deep inner locks. In 1908 a contract was signed with a Hawaiian company for the dredging work, which included the removal of the bar, the straightening of the channel, and the excavation for a drydock. The first part of this extremely difficult work has been completed, and on December 14, 1911, the United States armoured cruiser California steamed through the entrance, up the almost straight fourand-a-half-mile channel, and anchored in the inner harbour opposite the partly finished drydock. This was the first large vessel ever to reach the inner harbour. Among the admiral's invited guests were Queen Liliuokalani and Judge Dole, first Governor of the Territory—a pleasant commentary on the relations between the warring factions of old. Thus, at a cost of about $8,000,000, this part of the great work is nearing completion, and to-day the entire United States Navy, or any navy that we may eventually have, might steam into the harbour and find safe anchorage.

      Curiously have the old-time recommendations of Lieutenant Curtis to the Hawaiian Government been followed by the Army and Navy of his own country. While the dredging was being done seven great industrial buildings, including forge shops, a power house, a foundry, repair shops, and a storehouse, have been constructed. Marine barracks and officers' quarters are standing on the plain back of the harbour. Fort Kamehameha, with its powerful guns of most modem type, guards the channel leading to the sea. In different army posts throughout the Islands troops have been drilling. Lieutenant Curtis did not mention a drydock because he could not foresee the dreadnoughts of modem days. So, in addition to his recommendations, this is being constructed, a drydock 820 feet long, 110 feet wide, and 36 feet deep, which will require in the making thousands of tons of rocks and over $50,000 barrels of cement, which will cost $4,000,000 but will, when completed, hold the greatest naval vessels in the world. Connected with the station there will be also an administration building, a coaling plant, an immense floating crane, hospitals, and a powder magazine. Much work must still be done in the construction of sea walls, street paving, and in general yard development, yet it is expected that the station will be completed early in 1916. All this has, of course, given work to thousands of American citizens on the spot, and has been, as well, a stimulus to industrial enterprises in Honolulu, both in the furnishing of material and in the extension of transportation facilities.

      But the work at Pearl Harbour is in preparation for only one of the many military posts that are expected to make Oahu one of the most strongly fortified places in the world. All these posts will be on the southern and western slopes of the island, since the precipitous mountains on the windward side make an attack from that quarter physically impossible. What is more, the impregnability of Oahu will make untenable in case of war the permanent occupation of any of the other islands, since there are in them no harbours suitable for battleships which could possibly be defended. At the base of Diamond Head, Fort Ruger, with its concrete buildings for barracks and quarters and its heavy seacoast guns, garrisoned by two companies of the Coast Artillery Corps, is the headquarters of the Artillery District of Honolulu. Fort de Russy at Waikiki, a fortified post without, as yet, permanent barracks, is the headquarters of the Engineer Battalion. Fort Armstrong, guarding Honolulu harbour, is also a fortified post and serves as saluting station of the port. Fort Shafter at Moanalua, a few miles northwest of Honolulu, is a post consisting of frame buildings, and is garrisoned by a battalion of infantry. Schofield Barracks, on the upland plains between the Waianae and Koolau ranges of mountains, is garrisoned by a large force, which includes all branches of the mobile forces. The District of Hawaii, which includes the Hawaiian Islands and their dependencies, was, in October, 1911, created an independent military department, with headquarters in Honolulu. All the garrisons are gradually being increased, and it is probable that eventually 10,000 men, exclusive of naval and marine forces, will be stationed on the Island of Oahu. Already the military is almost as much in evidence in Honolulu as it is in Gibraltar, and, unless the city continues to grow, it seems as though in a few years the civil costume would be the exception rather than the rule.

      All this costly military preparation may seem to the unthinking, or to those so peace-loving that they see in every gun a threat of war, a waste of national funds. It is, on the contrary, profoundly foresighted, since the Pacific Ocean is rapidly becoming the theatre where world powers are striving for commercial and military supremacy. The Hawaiian Islands, situated at the cross-roads of traffic, the only available stopping-place in the whole vast extent of the North Pacific, will enable the United States absolutely to command the ocean against an Asiatic or any other power, by making an overseas attack too dangerous to be attempted. No modem war-fleet would dare to get 4,000 miles away from a base of supplies. This great, impregnable oasis of the ocean, moreover, will insure the safety of the important trade routes and will thus supplement the international value of the Panama Canal.

      The Territory has been, aside from its naval and military value, a paying investment for the United States. The customs receipts have increased every year, and in 1911 amounted to more than $1,650,000. Imports from the mainland have increased in value from $18,000,000 in 1903 to $22,000,000 in 1911. By the terms of annexation both the Government and Crown lands became the property of the United States, lands aggregating over half of the real property in the Islands. It has always been a disputed question with regard to the Crown lands as to whether or not some compensation should be made to the Queen, the income of these lands having been at the personal disposition of the sovereign. Legal opinion seems to hold, however, that the lands were held by the Crown in virtue of office, and that the transfer of the sovereignty carried with it transfer of title. In spite of this, most inhabitants of the Territory feel that it would not have been a straining of justice to give the Queen some compensation, and that the courtesy of the act would have done away finally with any lingering resentment among the Hawaiian people. Laws relating to all public lands are enacted by Congress and have been so framed as to offer every inducement to bona-fide homesteading, and at the same time to discourage occupancy for speculative purposes. The amount of arable land is comparatively small, and it is rightly considered wiser to get whatever income is possible by leasing than to allow it to fall permanently into other hands than those of desirable settlers, men who will not only improve their own holdings, but will raise community standards.

      The schools in the Territory, all of which are conducted in English, had enrolled in 1911 26,122 pupils, of whom 20,697 were in the public schools, 5,525 in the private. There was a total of 799 teachers, of whom 374 were American. Education is compulsory and free, and is as efficient in Hawaii in all branches below those of the university as it is in any part of the United States. It was said a few years ago that, excluding the Orientals, the proportion of illiterates in the Islands was lower than in the State of Massachusetts. A public library, toward which Mr. Carnegie gave $100,000, is building in Honolulu. By legislative enactment it will have an income of $15,000 a year, and will contain at the outset some 20,000 volumes, including the important collection belonging to the Hawaiian Historical Society.

      Nowhere is more efficient care taken of the public health. This is essential, since Honolulu, with its cosmopolitan population, its tropical climate, its immigration from all parts of the world, its situation at the junction of Pacific trade routes, is peculiarly liable to infection. And the very reasons which make it so liable are the same which make freedom from disease imperative. The water supply and the sewage system of Honolulu are excellent, as indeed they are rapidly becoming in all centres of population. The Territorial Board of Health has almost unlimited powers in the inspection of immigrants, of whom they send away hundreds annually, in passing on imported fruit, in the cleaning up of unsanitary districts, in the control of tuberculosis, and in the enforcement of pure-food laws. The legislature, realising the