A Footnote to History

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The centre-piece of all is the high chief himself,
Malietoa-Tuiatua-Tuiaana Mataafa, king--or not king--or king-claimant--of
Samoa. All goes to him, all comes from him. Native deputations bring
him gifts and are feasted in return. White travellers, to their
indescribable irritation, are (on his approach) waved from his path by
his armed guards. He summons his dancers by the note of a bugle. He
sits nightly at home before a semicircle of talking-men from many
quarters of the islands, delivering and hearing those ornate and elegant
orations in which the Samoan heart delights. About himself and all his
surroundings there breathes a striking sense of order, tranquillity, and
native plenty. He is of a tall and powerful person, sixty years of age,
white-haired and with a white moustache; his eyes bright and quiet; his
jaw perceptibly underhung, which gives him something of the expression of
a benevolent mastiff; his manners dignified and a thought insinuating,
with an air of a Catholic prelate. He was never married, and a natural
daughter attends upon his guests. Long since he made a vow of
chastity,--"to live as our Lord lived on this earth" and Polynesians
report with bated breath that he has kept it. On all such points, true
to his Catholic training, he is inclined to be even rigid. Lauati, the
pivot of Savaii, has recently repudiated his wife and taken a fairer; and
when I was last in Malie, Mataafa (with a strange superiority to his own
interests) had but just despatched a reprimand. In his immediate circle,
in spite of the smoothness of his ways, he is said to be more respected
than beloved; and his influence is the child rather of authority than
popularity. No Samoan grandee now living need have attempted that which
he has accomplished during the last twelve months with unimpaired
prestige, not only to withhold his followers from war, but to send them
to be judged in the camp of their enemies on Mulinuu. And it is a matter
of debate whether such a triumph of authority were ever possible before.
Speaking for myself, I have visited and dwelt in almost every seat of the
Polynesian race, and have met but one man who gave me a stronger
impression of character and parts.

About the situation, Mataafa expresses himself with unshaken peace. To
the chief justice he refers with some bitterness; to Laupepa, with a
smile, as "my poor brother." For himself, he stands upon the treaty, and
expects sooner or later an election in which he shall be raised to the
chief power. In the meanwhile, or for an alternative, he would willingly
embrace a compromise with Laupepa; to which he would probably add one
condition, that the joint government should remain seated at Malie, a
sensible but not inconvenient distance from white intrigues and white
officials. One circumstance in my last interview particularly pleased
me. The king's chief scribe, Esela, is an old employe under Tamasese,
and the talk ran some while upon the character of Brandeis. Loyalty in
this world is after all not thrown away; Brandeis was guilty, in Samoan
eyes, of many irritating errors, but he stood true to Tamasese; in the
course of time a sense of this virtue and of his general uprightness has
obliterated the memory of his mistakes; and it would have done his heart
good if he could have heard his old scribe and his old adversary join in
praising him. "Yes," concluded Mataafa, "I wish we had Planteisa back
again." _A quelque chose malheur est bon_. So strong is the impression
produced by the defects of Cedarcrantz and Baron Senfft, that I believe
Mataafa far from singular in this opinion, and that the return of the
upright Brandeis might be even welcome to many.

I must add a last touch to the picture of Malie and the pretender's life.
About four in the morning, the visitor in his house will be awakened by
the note of a pipe, blown without, very softly and to a soothing melody.
This is Mataafa's private luxury to lead on pleasant dreams. We have a
bird here in Samoa that about the same hour of darkness sings in the
bush. The father of Mataafa, while he lived, was a great friend and
protector to all living creatures, and passed under the by-name of _the
King of Birds_. It may be it was among the woodland clients of the sire
that the son acquired his fancy for this morning music.

* * * * *

I have now sought to render without extenuation the impressions received:
of dignity, plenty, and peace at Malie, of bankruptcy and distraction at
Mulinuu. And I wish I might here bring to an end ungrateful labours. But
I am sensible that there remain two points on which it would be improper
to be silent. I should be blamed if I did not indicate a practical
conclusion; and I should blame myself if I did not do a little justice to
that tried company of the Land Commissioners.

The Land Commission has been in many senses unfortunate. The original
German member, a gentleman of the name of Eggert, fell early into
precarious health; his work was from the first interrupted, he was at
last (to the regret of all that knew him) invalided home; and his
successor had but just arrived. In like manner, the first American
commissioner, Henry C. Ide, a man of character and intelligence, was
recalled (I believe by private affairs) when he was but just settling
into the spirit of the work; and though his place was promptly filled by
ex-Governor Ormsbee, a worthy successor, distinguished by strong and
vivacious common sense, the break was again sensible. The English
commissioner, my friend Bazett Michael Haggard, is thus the only one who
has continued at his post since the beginning. And yet, in spite of
these unusual changes, the Commission has a record perhaps unrivalled
among international commissions. It has been unanimous practically from
the first until the last; and out of some four hundred cases disposed of,
there is but one on which the members were divided. It was the more
unfortunate they should have early fallen in a difficulty with the chief
justice. The original ground of this is supposed to be a difference of
opinion as to the import of the Berlin Act, on which, as a layman, it
would be unbecoming if I were to offer an opinion. But it must always
seem as if the chief justice had suffered himself to be irritated beyond
the bounds of discretion. It must always seem as if his original attempt
to deprive the commissioners of the services of a secretary and the use
of a safe were even senseless; and his step in printing and posting a
proclamation denying their jurisdiction were equally impolitic and
undignified. The dispute had a secondary result worse than itself. The
gentleman appointed to be Natives' Advocate shared the chief justice's
opinion, was his close intimate, advised with him almost daily, and
drifted at last into an attitude of opposition to his colleagues. He
suffered himself besides (being a layman in law) to embrace the interest
of his clients with something of the warmth of a partisan. Disagreeable
scenes occurred in court; the advocate was more than once reproved, he
was warned that his consultations with the judge of appeal tended to
damage his own character and to lower the credit of the appellate court.
Having lost some cases on which he set importance, it should seem that he
spoke unwisely among natives. A sudden cry of colour prejudice went up;
and Samoans were heard to assure each other that it was useless to appear
before the Land Commission, which was sworn to support the whites.

This deplorable state of affairs was brought to an end by the departure
from Samoa of the Natives' Advocate. He was succeeded _pro tempore_ by a
young New Zealander, E. W. Gurr, not much more versed in law than
himself, and very much less so in Samoan. Whether by more skill or
better fortune, Gurr has been able in the course of a few weeks to
recover for the natives several important tracts of land; and the
prejudice against the Commission seems to be abating as fast as it arose.
I should not omit to say that, in the eagerness of the original advocate,
there was much that was amiable; nor must I fail to point out how much
there was of blindness. Fired by the ardour of pursuit, he seems to have
regarded his immediate clients as the only natives extant and the epitome
and emblem of the Samoan race. Thus, in the case that was the most
exclaimed against as "an injustice to natives," his client, Puaauli, was
certainly nonsuited. But in that intricate affair who lost the money?
The German firm. And who got the land? Other natives. To twist such a
decision into evidence, either of a prejudice against Samoans or a
partiality to whites, is to keep one eye shut and have the other
bandaged.

And lastly, one word as to the future. Laupepa and Mataafa stand over
against each other, rivals with no third competitor. They may be said to
hold the great name of Malietoa in commission; each has borne the style,
each exercised the authority, of a Samoan king; one is secure of the
small but compact and fervent following of the Catholics, the other has
the sympathies of a large part of the Protestant majority, and upon any
sign of Catholic aggression would have more. With men so nearly
balanced, it may be asked whether a prolonged successful exercise of
power be possible for either. In the case of the feeble Laupepa, it is
certainly not; we have the proof before us. Nor do I think we should
judge, from what we see to-day, that it would be possible, or would
continue to be possible, even for the kingly Mataafa. It is always the
easier game to be in opposition. The tale of David and Saul would
infallibly be re-enacted; once more we shall have two kings in the
land,--the latent and the patent; and the house of the first will become
once more the resort of "every one that is in distress, and every one
that is in debt, and every one that is discontented." Against such odds
it is my fear that Mataafa might contend in vain; it is beyond the bounds
of my imagination that Laupepa should contend at all. Foreign ships and
bayonets is the cure proposed in Mulinuu. And certainly, if people at
home desire that money should be thrown away and blood shed in Samoa, an
effect of a kind, and for the time, may be produced. Its nature and
prospective durability I will ask readers of this volume to forecast for
themselves. There is one way to peace and unity: that Laupepa and
Mataafa should be again conjoined on the best terms procurable. There
may be other ways, although I cannot see them; but not even malevolence,
not even stupidity, can deny that this is one. It seems, indeed, so
obvious, and sure, and easy, that men look about with amazement and
suspicion, seeking some hidden motive why it should not be adopted.

To Laupepa's opposition, as shown in the case of the Lauati scheme, no
dweller in Samoa will give weight, for they know him to be as putty in
the hands of his advisers. It may be right, it may be wrong, but we are
many of us driven to the conclusion that the stumbling-block is Fangalii,
and that the memorial of that affair shadows appropriately the house of a
king who reigns in right of it. If this be all, it should not trouble us
long. Germany has shown she can be generous; it now remains for her only
to forget a natural but certainly ill-grounded prejudice, and allow to
him, who was sole king before the plenipotentiaries assembled, and who
would be sole king to-morrow if the Berlin Act could be rescinded, a
fitting share of rule. The future of Samoa should lie thus in the hands
of a single man, on whom the eyes of Europe are already fixed. Great
concerns press on his attention; the Samoan group, in his view, is but as
a grain of dust; and the country where he reigns has bled on too many
august scenes of victory to remember for ever a blundering skirmish in
the plantation of Vailele. It is to him--to the sovereign of the wise
Stuebel and the loyal Brandeis,--that I make my appeal.

_May_ 25, 1892.




FOOTNOTES


{1} Brother and successor of Theodor.