You will perceive by the detailed Report of my Minister of Finance that the liabilities of my Treasury have been promptly discharged and the public credit fully sustained, notwithstanding the large expenditure made for important public improvements. The law for the more just and equal collection of Taxes, passed at your last Session, has operated favorably on the national finances, although I am of opinion that some alterations in its provisions would still further improve it.
In addition to the ordinary expenses of the Government, you will see the necessity of appropriations sufficient to complete the public works already commenced, even though it should be necessary to resort to the loan authorized by the law of the last Session.
My Minister of Finance has also called your attention to the important subject of a Usury law, which I commend to your favorable consideration.
He has likewise alluded to a proposed mode of payment for the steamer before mentioned, which may, I trust, preclude all embarrassment to my Treasury.
You cannot, at present, regard the law imposing duties on imports passed at your last Session, as a basis for appropriations, because it is uncertain whether it will go into effect.
The state and progress of Education among my people during the past year, you will learn from the Report of the President of the Board of Education. The change in that Department, by an Act of the last Legislature, has proved, thus far, to be beneficial. It is particularly gratifying to know that instruction in the English language is prosecuted with so much success among my native subjects. I recommend you to make as liberal a provision for the support of this class of schools as the state of my Treasury will admit.
I feel so keenly the necessity of some new stimulus to agriculture, in all its branches, that I very seriously call your attention to that point, and shall be happy if in your wisdom you can devise any measures to promote so important an object. The Native Hawaiian Agricultural Society, lately instituted, needs your fostering care in the form in which you have manifested it towards the sister Association. The decrease of our population, and the means of staying it, occupy many of my thoughts; and a subject so important cannot fail to receive your serious consideration. Intimately connected with the subject last alluded to, is the still unaccomplished wish of all the true friends of the nation to see [a] Hospital established, and I sincerely hope that those who have foretold difficulties opposed to the success of such an institution, will at last allow the experiment to be made. Fearful, as we all must be, of the introduction of any new diseases to decimate us again, I beg of you to consider by what means, under Providence, such a calamity may be averted.
I sincerely trust that the Ruler of all will guide your deliberations to a result beneficial to the nation.
May 24, 1856.