but the control was given to a Chief
Justice and a President of the Municipal Council of Apia, who were to
be foreigners chosen by the three powers. Their relative authority is
indicated by the fact that the king was to receive $1800 a year, the
Chief Justice, $6000, and the President, $5000.

Small as was the immediate stake, this little episode was remarkably
significant of the trend of American development. Begun under Grant and
concluded under Blaine and Harrison, the policy of the United States
was the creation of no one mind or party nor did it accord with American
traditions. Encountering European powers in the Pacific, with no
apparent hesitation though without any general intent, the United States
entered into cooperative agreements with them relating to the native
governments which it would never have thought proper or possible in
other parts of the world. The United States seemed to be evolving a new
policy for the protection of its interests in the Pacific. This first
clash with the rising colonial power of Germany has an added interest
because it revealed a fundamental similarity in colonial policy between
the United States and Great Britain, even though they were prone to
quarrel when adjusting Anglo-American relations.

While the Samoan affair seemed an accidental happening, there was taking
shape in the Pacific another episode which had a longer history and was
more significant of the expansion of American interests in that ocean.
Indeed, with the Pacific coast line of the United States, with the
superb harbors of San Francisco, Portland, and Puget Sound, and with
Alaska stretching its finger tips almost to Asia, even Blaine could not
resist the lure of the East, though he endeavored to reconcile American
traditions of isolation with oceanic expansion. Of all the Pacific
archipelagoes, the Hawaiian Islands lie nearest to the shores of the
United States. Although they had been discovered to the European world
by the great English explorer, Captain Cook, their intercourse had, for
geographic reasons, always been chiefly with the United States. Whalers
continually resorted to them for supplies. Their natives shipped on
American vessels and came in numbers to California in early gold-mining
days. American missionaries attained their most striking success in the
Hawaiian Islands and not only converted the majority of the natives but
assisted the successive kings in their government. The descendants
of these