THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 172, 22 January 1848, Page 2

THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.

One of the most curious and interesting communities at present existing, ii that of the Sandwich Islands, fheie, 'among a people who yesterday, as it were, could only be regarded as savages, and who are even. yet mere infants in civilization, «ye find production and commerce yearly extending, with a constitutional monarchy under which educa ion is progremng, and equitable laws framed and enforced. The instrumentality by which this has been effected is not less remarkabls than the resulti. Permanently settled among the natives of the Sandwich Islands, there is a population of European race which can scarcely exceed in number a thousand individuals of all ages. One-half of these are (or were— for a considerable proportion of them have been naturalized) American citizens, one fourth English subjects; the remainder are most miscellaneous in their origin. These Europeans are the merchants, schoolmasters, manufacturers, and clergymen of the Islands. Sume of them are planters on an extensive scale. The government is vested iv the king, queen, and a council of chief* belonging to the royal lamily ; but the administration ii almost exclusively entrusted to ministers selected from among the European settlers. The Ministers of Finance, Public Instruction, and Foreign Affairs— the Attorney and Solicitor General — the heacs of the Customs and Treasury Departments, the Chief Judges—the Sheriff of the capital, and severaf justices of peace, are either American or Englishmen. The judicious manner in winch these leading spirits of the civilised settlers exerciie their intellectual ascendancy, has enabled them t i bring and keep the chiefi within, the pale of law — to establish an efficient and permanent form of civil government — under the dominion of which industry and commerce are flourishing, the European and the high cast native race gradually becoming one by intermarriages, and the trans tion of a wholesociety from a barbarous to a civilised state being effected with increased celerity, and without any painful struggles. For this good work, credit is more or less due to all the officials above enumerated; but in an especial manner to Mr. Judd, now, in his capacity of Minister of Finance, the legislator aud ruler of the Sandwich Islands. To the comprehensive views and firm character of that gentleman is the piesent satisfactory condition of the wholegroup mainly attributable. The ascendancy which his character gives hm, bot over the aborigines and the Eu opean sailers and visitors, has prevented collision between them, and has compelled foreign governments to abstain from meddling with the internal affairs of the Islinds. Th» foundations of a civilised state have been laid, and the reiring of the superstructure far advanced, by h.s efforts, within the brief space of a quarter of a century. The intellectual, moral, and religious character ot the Haweiian people will be cast in the English mould : tbey are de facto a colony of the United States. The North American Union has now its colonies, as well as its parent country, England. Rightly viewed, all the " territories'' of the Union which have grown up, or are growing up into States, are colonies ; but the continuity of territory in the case of most of them causes an apparent difference. The remoteness of the American settlements in Oregon, California, and the Sandwich Islands, renders their analogy to our English over-sea colonies more obvious. In all of these regions, American settlements have been founded and are certain to endure* The proclamation ot Governor Kearney to the Californians, and the me3sage of the Governor of Oregon to his extemporised legislature, are evidence that these territories and their inhabitants are to stand henceforth in a relation of dependence to the Government at Washington. The settlers in Oregon will be in a great measure of unmixed AngloAmerican Race. The descendants of the Mormon settlement in California will iv time occupy the wh <le land as surely as those of the Pilgrim Fathers exc-u-sively possess New England. The connexion of the Sandwich Islands with the Union will be less close* less the result of any legal connexion, than of the bonds of kindred anting From the pieponderance of Americans among the first missionaries and settlers there, confirmed by the greater repair of American whalers and merchantmen to these islands than of any other nation, and to the necessary increase in their majority, now that the Columbia and the Bay of San Francisco have become American ports. The north eastern shore of the Pacific and its nearest island groups are in the progress of settlement, and their commerce with that of the surrounding regious is about to be developed by American, as surely as the same work is being effected on its south-western coast and adjacent island groups by British colonists. What the' Australian, settlements and New Zealand are, to Great Britain, Oregon and California, with the Sandwich Islands, are about to be to the United States. This is matter of congratulation for Great Britain, not of jealousy. The joint labours of England and America are required to reclaim the Pacific for the profitable uss of civilised men. Between them — to say nothing of the s.condaiy efforts of other nations —that ocean, with its continental shores and islands, which at the beginning of the present centuiy were scarcely turned to any account by civilized men, are rapidly becoming as much frequeuted, and converted to as profitable purpose, as tho*e of the Atlantic It will be a useful lesson to our countrymen— -though we fear scarcely flattering to tneir vanity— to contrast the manner in which the Americans have done their work in the Hawiian, with the manner in which we ore doing our work in the New Zealand group. But this. must be reserved for another paper. — London Daily News,