fended himself, as I am advised, and the police magistrate misinterpreted the law and wrongly adjudged that Quinn's remedy was before the board of appeal, whereas he should have discharged Quinn. But Quinn had the right to appeal from that wrong judgment to the local circuit judge of Hawaii who lives at Hilo. This appeal he did not take, and so on he might have appealed to every court up to the supreme court itself, and I beg to remind your excellency of the universal rule, that every man must exhaust his legal remedy before he has occasion.to resort to his country's representative for redress, or, in other words, one cannot complain that justice is denied him, until he has sought for it from all those who are appointed to do him justice.

It may be said that Quinn is ignorant of our mode of procedure. But Captain Spencer is not, for he has resided and done business in this country for twenty-eight years. Your excellency's note to me, dated December 30, alludes to a conversation had with me some two or three days previously.

The facts, as I now learn them, are, that the next day after the judgment in the police court of Hilo against Quinn, Captain Spencer called at the office of Mr. Sheriff Severance, on the 13th of December, and Mr. Severance said to him that if he (Mr. Spencer) would write to the minister of finance, he (Mr. Severance) had no doubt that the minister would remit the amount; and Mr. Severance further says that he supposed, from his remarks, that Captain Spencer would take that course.

Mr. Severance further wrote a letter on the subject, which was received here on the 17th of December last, and replies were sent to Mr. Severance on the 23d following, directing him to call on the tax collector, requiring him to pay the money back to Quinn; and as the steamer started on the same day from Hilo to Honolulu, Mr. Severance, of course, could not find Quinn that day; he (Mr. Severance) would arrange the matter as soon as he could find Quinn.

And so it was supposed here that the matter had ended and was amicably arranged until your excellency's note of February 4 was received at this office. Immediately on receipt of that note another letter was sent to Mr. Severance directing him, if the amount had not already been paid Mr. Quinn, to pay it at once; and if Quinn were not in Hilo to pay it to Captain Spencer; and if Captain Spencer would not receive it to notify him (Captain Spencer) that he (Mr. Severance) held the amount subject to Spencer's or Quinn's order.

Thus I trust that your excellency will perceive that there was no fault to be attributed to the executive officers in the inception of this matter; and that after the mistake made by the Hilo magistrate, all the authorities have promptly endeavored to correct the error, even before your excellency communicated with me; and I trust you will further see that if Captain Spencer had acted in that calm and friendly manner which might have been expected of him from his conversation on the 13th of December with Mr. Severance, your excellency would never have been troubled with this

matter.

Renewing the assurances of the highest respect and most distinguished consideration, I have the honor to be your excellency's most humble, obedient servant, JNO. M. KAPENA.

(Assessments to be made of full cash value, as of July 1, 1879.)

Property in hand belonging to others..

Value of property not enumerated above.

Number of horses

Number of carriages for pleasure.

Number of vehicles for the carriage of merchandise
Number of dogs.......

Can you read and write?

Are you a Hawaiian subject?

Names of persons in your employ subject to taxation.

I do solemnly swear that the list of persons residing with me, and of animals and other property in my possession, or owned by me, liable to taxation, which I have given above, is true; so help me God.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency's note of the 14th instant, in which you state in detail the efforts that have been made to rectify the injustice done to Patrick Quinn, by an erroneous assessment of taxes not due from him, and by trouble and expense and fine and threatened imprisonment, through erro. neous judgment of a Hawaiian court.

I desire to express frankly my sense of the readiness with which redress was offered, so far as redress could be made by refunding money wrongfully taken (we may admit) through an honest error of judgment. While not desiring to proceed further in this case without instructions from the Secretary of State, I cannot leave it without saying that your excellency must see from this very case, on reflection, that redress from the courts must be, to say the least, very inadequate as a remedy for this particular sort of injustice. I cannot admit that an American citizen may be forced to fight for his liberty and property through all the Hawaiian courts up to that of last resort, because an official of this government has committed an error which might have been avoided by simply asking information of the man himself. In the case of this workingman such a course would amount to a substantial denial of justice. He has neither the learning nor the money to enable him to prosecute such a contest. I respectfully suggest to your excellency that the tax assessor is bound to know, before he places the name on the list, whether the person assessed is liable. If he places a man on the list who is not subject to the tax, it is he and not the person erroneously taxed who should pay the penalty of the error.

The amount in controversy in this case is nothing. It has not uncommonly hap pened that great principles have been tested upon cases where the pecuniary interest was inconsiderable. I am well aware of the principle quoted by your excellency, leaving citizens to the decision of the foreign courts where they are rightfully before such courts; but I submit that in this case the courts have no right to the person or property of Patrick Quinn, under the circumstances which we are all agreed have existed.

With the highest respect and most distinguished consideration, I am, your excellency's very obedient servant,

SIR: Your dispatch No. 91, of the 16th ultimo, in which you report your action, together with that of Mr. Consular-Agent Spencer, in the

matter of the illegal arrest and taxation of one Patrick Quinn, a citizen of the United States, has been received, as well as the several inclosures, being the correspondence had in relation thereto, and read with interest and close attention, and it gives me pleasure to say that your course and that of Mr. Spencer, in the premises, meets with entire approval. I am, &c.,

WM. M. EVARTS.

No. 95.]

No. 383.

Mr. Comly to Mr. Evarts.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Honolulu, March 15, 1880. (Received April 1.)

SIR: I have the honor to transmit further correspondence, since last mail day, in relation to the case of Patrick Quinn and other similar cases since brought to my notice. These inclosures complete the exhibits properly belonging to my dispatch No. 91, sent by last mail.

I have, &c.,

JAMES M. COMLY.

[Inclosure 1 in No. 95.]

Mr. Kapena to Mr. Comly.

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
Honolulu, February 17, 1880.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency's note of yesterday, in which you say that you are not desirous of proceeding further in the case of P. Quinn" without further instructions from the Secretary of State." Of course I am not desirous of continuing the correspondence any more than your excellency is; but there is one sentence in your excellency's letter which I think it worth while to speak of; it is this: You say, "An official of this government has committed an error which might have been avoided by simply asking information from the man himself." And again, "the tax assessor is bound to know, before he places a name on the list, whether the person assessed is liable. If he place a man on the list who is not subject to a tax, it is he and not the person erroneously taxed who should pay the penalty of the error." I think it worth while to again remark that Quinn was living on a plantation in Hilo, and that the assessor did ask the manager who of his employés was liable to taxation, and left the printed form containing the question to be answered at his leisure, so that the manager had an entire month to inquire of "the hands." The manager returned in writing the name of Quinn as liable to taxation. these circumstances your excellency will see that the manager had every opportunity to ask of Quinn the necessary question as to his liability, and it was the manager, therefore (the employer of Quinn), who is to blame for putting his name on the list, rather than the assessor.

Under

I make these remarks without any desire of prolonging the correspondence, but only because I am always anxious to clear up any misunderstanding and place the matter in a clear light.

SIR: I have delayed my reply to your excellency's note of February 17, in the hope that yesterday's steamer from Hawaii would give me final information of the receipt by Patrick Quinn of his money and of his satisfaction. So far, however, I have only a notification that the money, $8, has been placed in the hands of Consular-Agent Spencer, subject to call of Patrick Quinn.

I regret to say that in the mean time two other protests have reached me through United States Consul Morton of cases similar in all respects to that of Quinn, except that in these new cases the tax collector himself took the names of the men, they protesting at the time against his illegal action.

Your excellency having taken the pains to repeat to me in your last note the statement that Quinn's name was given to the assessor by the manager of the plantation where he was employed, and that it was the manager, therefore, and not the assessor, who is to blame, it seems necessary for me also to repeat that the assessor is the only lawful agent of His Majesty's Government in this business, and if he delegates any part of his duties to a private person having no official relation to the duty and unknown to the law in that connection, the assessor becomes liable for the acts of his agent as fully as if they were his own acts. The person wronged could have no remedy against the manager of the plantation, because he is wholly unknown to the law as an assessor of taxes. Your excellency holds that the assessor is not to blame if he ignorantly accepts the list of which the manager has wronged the person illegally assessed. It would result, therefore, that the assessor has only to employ some agent unknown to the law to place the names of American citizens on the tax-list, and they may be illegally taxed without remedy and nobody to blame. The courtesy of his excellency the minister of finance would in that case be the only recourse to prevent His Majesty's Government from doing a great wrong to an American citizen.

I cannot help thinking that your excellency will see on reflection that the only safe rule, not only for the protection of the citizens but for the protection of the government itself, is to hold the assessor responsible for the performance of the duty with which the law charges him. The government, it seems to me, should hold the assessor alone responsible for protecting its good name from the charge of injustice in wrongfully taxing persons not liable.

I have no desire, however, to prolong the discussion. I hope all future cases may be settled by an application direct to his excellency the minister of finance, who has so courteously and promptly ordered the money to be refunded in the case of Patrick Quinn.

It remains only for me to give the names of the two cases brought to my notice by Mr. Morton.

John Grace writes to Mr. Morton, inclosing tax-receipts for 1879, signed by J. Mills, Luna Auhan, acknowledging the receipt of $5 each from John Grace and T. Hayes, both employed at Honokaa, Hawaii. Grace states that he arrived in Honolulu, per steamer Australia, September 9, 1879, and did not go to Hawaii for a month later. Hayes arrived at Honolulu from San Francisco, November 4, 1879.

You will observe that both of these men arrived in the country after the date of making up the tax-rolls even, as stated in your excellency's note. Grace states that there are no less than eight American citizens on this one plantation, Honokaa, that have been forced to pay this tax in the same way, ilegally, under threats of imprisonment.

I hope all these cases may be promptly set right without further correspondence, and that such instructions may be issued as will relieve the minister of finance from all further trouble from errors of this sort on the part of assessors. Renewing the assurances of my highest respect and consideration,

I am, &c.,

NOTE. The remaining inclosures are omitted herefrom.

JAMES M. COMLY.

No. 100.]

No. 384.

Mr. Comly to Mr. Evarts.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Honolulu, March 15, 1880. (Received April 1.)

SIR: I have the honor of transmitting copies of Hawaiian customhouse statistics, covering the year 1879.

*

It will be observed that this year the imports of rice into the Hawaiian Islands do not appear separately, but are covered under some general heading. It is probable that they are smaller than last year.

The imports of "machinery" are reported as follows:

1. Value of goods paying duty.

2. Value of goods free by treaty

$342,979 98 199,477 18

I have confidentially verified a conjecture which struck me in examining these statistics, that "machinery paying duty" consists almost entirely of sugar "plants" and parts of plants from Great Britain; and that that "free by treaty" consists chiefly of steam-powers, sewing-machines, and other patented articles which cannot be bought elsewhere than in the United States. I learn from the same source that there is not one sugar plant from the United States during the entire year, and very little sugar machinery of any kind.

During the year there were seven full plants and two nearly full plants, besides other machinery, from Great Britain.

Again, the values, as stated, are misleading. The British sugar plants are invoiced by the manufacturer at Glasgow at net cost in the manufactory. They are sold here, after going through the custom-house, with all profits, costs, expenses, commissions, freights, tariffs, &c., added to the manufacturer's invoice.

The value, as reported, is therefore not more than 50 per centum of the real value of British machinery imported to these islands.

For example, four or five of the sugar plants from Glasgow, Scotland, are invoiced at a uniform figure, a fraction over $32,000. One only is put at about $50,000.

Now, I am told that the planters have paid for these plants all the way along from $42,000 to $80,000. A glance at the table giving valuations of cargoes of merchant vessels will be suggestive, as nearly the whole cargo of all vessels from Glasgow would show sugar machinery.

The Secretary of State will see that these facts and statistics confirm all I have said in former dispatches as to the bulk of the trade in sugar machinery having been absorbed by British manufacturers. The planters are not wholly or only to blame. An enterprising Scotch manufacturer has been here taking orders for his machinery and exploiting its merits. All the sugar plants received this year have been from his manufactory. Our manufacturers have neglected to work up a trade in sugar machinery until the best of it is already gone for years. The manufacturers on the Pacific Coast have lucrative business in mining machinery, and Eastern manufacturers seem to have ignored the business altogether.

As to most other items, there is a very gratifying showing for the United States. Our trade here is increasing considerably, and about 70 per cent. of the tonnage covers American bottoms.