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668 Hawaii annexed. The Currency question. [i890-8 A new minister to Hawaii was appointed, with instructions to endeavour to bring about the Queen's restoration. This plan, when it became known, was violently attacked in the United States and met with much popular opposition ; and any possibility of carrying it into effect was destroyed by the action of the Queen, who, when the American minister, in conformity with his instructions, requested an amnesty for those who were concerned in her overthrow, replied that the law must take its course. The penalty of their offence was death and the forfeiture of their estates. A constitutional republic was afterwards duly established, and was formally recognised by President Cleveland. It lasted till the islands were annexed to the United States in 1898. In domestic affairs, the first question on which President Cleveland, after his second inauguration, was required to act, was that of the currency. On June 4, 1893, he announced his purpose to convene Congress in special session in the following September, in order to consider that question. The subsequent development of signs of panic caused him to issue a proclamation designating August 7 as the day of meeting. The country, in fact, was in the midst of a serious financial crisis. The hoarding of gold had assumed alarming proportions. It was impossible, even upon the best security, to obtain money for the needs of current business. Shares in the soundest companies had in many instances fallen to prices representing less than half their usual market value. When Congress assembled, President Cleveland imme- diately laid before it a measure of relief. The existing disorders he ascribed chiefly to the statute of July 14, 1890, commonly called the Sherman Act, by which the Secretary of the Treasury was commanded each month to purchase, if so much should be offered, 4,500,000 ounces of silver, issuing therefor Treasury notes which were redeemable on demand in gold or silver coin, at the discretion of the Secretary, but which were on redemption to be reissued. This Act did not represent the financial views of its putative author, who was an advocate of sound money, but was a measure of compromise, designed to prevent the defec- tion of " silver " Republicans, as well as the passage, with the support of members of both parties, of a bill for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. The Act, however, declared it to be the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other, at whatever ratio might be fixed by law. To this end the Secretary of the Treasury was required constantly to submit to demands for gold, since any refusal of them would at once have discredited silver obligations and destroyed the parity between the two metals. In three years the gold coin and bullion in the Treasury had decreased by more than $132,000,000, while the silver coin and bullion had increased by more than $147,000,000 ; and the excess of exports over imports of gold was rapidly increasing. The President therefore recommended the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Act of 1890, and the adoption of