When I visited the Hawaiian Group in the spring of 1909 the work of fortifying Honolulu was being pushed on with great vigour, and the American military and civil authorities boasted of their intention to make it the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The city of Honolulu has at present a very small harbour, a little bay to which access is given by an opening in the coral reefs which surround the island. This port would hardly afford shelter to a squadron of cruisers. But to the left as one enters is Pearl Harbour, a magnificent stretch of land-locked water sufficient to float a great Fleet. But Pearl Harbour basin in its natural state is too well protected, there being no means of access except for very small boats. American energy is now remedying that, and a deep-water channel is being cut from Honolulu Harbour to Pearl Harbour to take vessels of the largest draught at all tides. When that channel is completed, Pearl Harbour will be at once commodious and easily protected. The single narrow entrance will be dominated by the guns of Malakiki Hill, a great eminence, somewhat like Gibraltar in shape, to the right of the town, which commands the sea-front east and west: and within Pearl Harbour the American Pacific Fleet will find a safe haven. It will be absolutely impregnable from the sea. Hostile ships approaching Honolulu would have to steer straight for Malakiki and then defile amid the coral reefs past its guns before the entrance to Pearl Harbour would open before them. But land defence has also to be taken into account. The chief male element of the Hawaiian population is not American, not native Hawaiian. It is Japanese. The Mikado's subjects represent now the largest fighting element in the population, outnumbering even the natives. These Japanese, imported as coolies for the sugar-fields, are mostly men of military training. Further influx of them has now been stopped, not under an Immigration Restriction Act, but by private treaty with Japan; and, as a measure of precaution, an Arms Registration Ordinance provides that no citizen shall have in his possession firearms unless he is licensed by the Government. But this precaution would be in vain if Japan ever seriously thought of using her 50,000 soldier-citizens in the Hawaiian Group against the United States; for the whole of the fishing industry is in the hands of the Japanese, and their sampans could land arms at various places on the islands with ease. Such a contingency has been foreseen in the laying out of Honolulu as a naval base, and the land fortifications are designed with the same thoroughness as those designed to beat off a sea attack.