Mr. Hay to Mr. White.
Washington, January 10, 1899.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Jackson’s No. 649, of the 9th ultimo, with reference to the status of the Hawaiian chargé d’affaires and consul-general at Berlin. * * *
As stated in my telegram of the 4th instant, the diplomatic functions of the Hawaiian representative as chargé d’affaires ceased upon the annexation of the islands. With reference to his commercial capacity, I enlarge upon my telegrams as follows:
By the joint resolution of Congress, approved July 7, 1898, providing for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States it is provided that “until legislation shall be enacted extending the United States customs laws and regulations to the Hawaiian Islands, the customs relations of the Hawaiian Islands with the United States and other countries shall remain unchanged.”
This Government had regarded that provision of law as continuing the commercial relations of the Hawaiian Islands with other States pending such legislation by Congress concerning the Hawaiian Islands as may be deemed necessary or proper, and consequently the United States continues to conduct its commercial business through its own consular officer at Honolulu as a de facto commercial agent, while the Hawaiian consuls in this country continue to act in a similar capacity. Until the commercial dependency of the Hawaiian Islands upon the United States shall be regulated by law, it would seem desirable that the present representatives of the Hawaiian Islands should continue [Page 296] to discharge their commercial functions as such agents in foreign countries, and until such laws shall be passed this Government is not prepared to commission those consular officers as full consular officers of the United States or to merge their functions in those of existing consular representatives of the United States in the same localities.
With regard, however, to the consular officers of foreign Governments in the Hawaiian Islands the case is somewhat different, and inquiries on this point have been, in several instances, answered by expressing the opinion of this Government that it would be desirable for the existing foreign consuls in the Hawaiian Islands to receive new commissions from their Governments, upon which this Government could issue its exequator covering the present provisional arrangement with respect to the commercial intercourse of Hawaii with foreign countries.
I am, etc.,