The Times gives an explanation about the British seizure of
the Sandwich Islands. Admiral Pourm-r, it is said, preferred some pecuniary claim ; which the King, unable to give money, offered to satisfy by the cession of sovereignty ; and the Admiral accepted the cession provisionally, subject to the decision of Queen VICTORIA. The Times assumes that the agreement will not be ratified, and argues for the independence of the native government. The inde- pendence, we believe, is a shadow. There is not substance enough in the native race to keep it independent, especially when opposed to the incursion of the European races. One of these things must inevitably happen to the Sandwich Islands,—they must eventually be occupied by Great Britain, France, or the United States; or the "independent ' Government will yield to the more lawless en- croachment of the European immigrants, until some half-Frankish half-aboriginal buccaneering power grow up to be a nuisance to the rest of Polynesia, eventually to be absorbed in the sway of the dominant party, French, American, or British. If England waives possession of Hawaii, it is only yielding it to the rival claims of America or France. It would be more practicable to dike out the sea from the Goodwin Sands than European blood and power from any part of Polynesia. The manner in which the French have spoken, in the Deputies' debate on their Polynesian dependencies, about New Zealand, England's promptitude and energy, and the daring of Captain Hossow, shows that had our Go- vernment not been forced to seize that important group when it did, New Zealand would now have belonged to France : for all protests and retrospective claims on grounds of discovery, or as- sertion of "independence" expressly recognized by England—as it was—would have availed nothing against actual possession ; they have availed nothing against our actual possession. The question of the Sandwich Islands is therefore narrowed to the question of their importance. They are at the opposite end of the archipelago from New Zealand ; lying • in an amphitheatre bounded by Japan, the Russian colonies, the disputed territory of the Columbia, Western Spanish America, and quite " convenient " to the contemplated canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Some day we shall want just such a station.
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