JAPANESE AS KING.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 224, 21 September 1929, Page 16 (Supplement)

JAPANESE AS KING.

HAWAIIAN OVERTURE IN 1381 KALAKAUA'S AMBITION. Half a century ago Hawaii came near to acquiring a Japanese prince as sovereign, according to a story which has gained currency in the Japanese Press. The newspapers in Tokyo qnote a privately circulated family document of the princely house of Higashi-Fushimi to the effect that King Kalakaua of Hawaii, visiting Japan in 1881 in the course of a trip around the world, proposed to Emperor Meiji that Prince Yorihito Higashi-Fushimi, then 14=years old, be adopted as the Hawaiian heir apparent and marry the Hawaiian king's daughter. This account says that the Emperor at first received the proposal favourably, but later politelf declined

it. King Kalakaua, last but on»> of the Hawaiian sovereigns, was an sible and wilful monarch whC Aept in constant trouble because of his attempt at autbcratic rule. He was an antiAmerican and anti-European, and his ambition once soared to the level of claiming the "primacy of the Pacific," with protectorates over other island groups. He died in San I'rancisco in IS9I and was succeeded by his sister, the fam us Queen Lilioukalani.