CHAPTER XI
LAUPEPA AND MATAAFA
1889-1892
With the hurricane, the broken war-ships, and the stranded sailors, I amat an end of violence, and my tale flows henceforth among carpetincidents. The blue-jackets on Apia beach were still jealously heldapart by sentries, when the powers at home were already seeking apeaceable solution. It was agreed, so far as might be, to obliterate twoyears of blundering; and to resume in 1889, and at Berlin, thosenegotiations which had been so unhappily broken off at Washington in1887. The example thus offered by Germany is rare in history; in thecareer of Prince Bismarck, so far as I am instructed, it should standunique. On a review of these two years of blundering, bullying, andfailure in a little isle of the Pacific, he seems magnanimously to haveowned his policy was in the wrong. He left Fangalii unexpiated; sufferedthat house of cards, the Tamasese government, to fall by its own frailtyand without remark or lamentation; left the Samoan question openly andfairly to the conference: and in the meanwhile, to allay the local heatsengendered by Becker and Knappe, he sent to Apia that invaluable publicservant, Dr. Stuebel. I should be a dishonest man if I did not beartestimony to the loyalty since shown by Germans in Samoa. Their positionwas painful; they had talked big in the old days, now they had to singsmall. Even Stuebel returned to the islands under the prejudice of anunfortunate record. To the minds of the Samoans his name representedthe beginning of their sorrows; and in his first term of office he hadunquestionably driven hard. The greater his merit in the surprisingsuccess of the second. So long as he stayed, the current of affairsmoved smoothly; he left behind him on his departure all men at peace;and whether by fortune, or for the want of that wise hand of guidance,he was scarce gone before the clouds began to gather once more on ourhorizon.
Before the first convention, Germany and the States hauled down theirflags. It was so done again before the second; and Germany, by a stillmore emphatic step of retrogression, returned the exile Laupepa to hisnative shores. For two years the unfortunate man had trembled andsuffered in the Cameroons, in Germany, in the rainy Marshalls. When heleft (September 1887) Tamasese was king, served by five iron war-ships;his right to rule (like a dogma of the Church) was placed outsidedispute; the Germans were still, as they were called at that lasttearful interview in the house by the river, "the invincible strangers";the thought of resistance, far less the hope of success, had not yetdawned on the Samoan mind. He returned (November 1889) to a changedworld. The Tupua party was reduced to sue for peace, Brandeis waswithdrawn, Tamasese was dying obscurely of a broken heart; the Germanflag no longer waved over the capital; and over all the islands onefigure stood supreme. During Laupepa's absence this man had succeededhim in all his honours and titles, in tenfold more than all his powerand popularity. He was the idol of the whole nation but the rump of theTamaseses, and of these he was already the secret admiration. In hisposition there was but one weak point,--that he had even been tacitlyexcluded by the Germans. Becker, indeed, once coquetted with the thoughtof patronising him; but the project had no sequel, and it stands alone.In every other juncture of history the German attitude has been thesame. Choose whom you will to be king; when he has failed, choose whomyou please to succeed him; when the second fails also, replace thefirst: upon the one condition, that Mataafa be excluded. "_Pourvu qu'ilsache signer_!"--an official is said to have thus summed up thequalifications necessary in a Samoan king. And it was perhaps fearedthat Mataafa could do no more and might not always do so much. But thisoriginal diffidence was heightened by late events to something vergingupon animosity. Fangalii was unavenged: the arms of Mataafa were
_Nondum inexpiatis uncta cruoribus_, Still soiled with the unexpiated blood
of German sailors; and though the chief was not present in the field,nor could have heard of the affair till it was over, he had reaped fromit credit with his countrymen and dislike from the Germans.
I may not say that trouble was hoped. I must say--if it were not feared,the practice of diplomacy must teach a very hopeful view of humannature. Mataafa and Laupepa, by the sudden repatriation of the last,found themselves face to face in conditions of exasperating rivalry. Theone returned from the dead of exile to find himself replaced andexcelled. The other, at the end of a long, anxious, and successfulstruggle, beheld his only possible competitor resuscitated from thegrave. The qualities of both, in this difficult moment, shone out nobly.I feel I seem always less than partial to the lovable Laupepa; hisvirtues are perhaps not those which chiefly please me, and are certainlynot royal; but he found on his return an opportunity to display theadmirable sweetness of his nature. The two entered into a competition ofgenerosity, for which I can recall no parallel in history, each waivingthe throne for himself, each pressing it upon his rival; and theyembraced at last a compromise the terms of which seem to have beenalways obscure and are now disputed. Laupepa at least resumed his styleof King of Samoa; Mataafa retained much of the conduct of affairs, andcontinued to receive much of the attendance and respect befittingroyalty; and the two Malietoas, with so many causes of disunion, dweltand met together in the same town like kinsmen. It was so, that I firstsaw them; so, in a house set about with sentries--for there was still ahaunting fear of Germany,--that I heard them relate their variousexperience in the past; heard Laupepa tell with touching candour of thesorrows of his exile, and Mataafa with mirthful simplicity of hisresources and anxieties in the war. The relation was perhaps toobeautiful to last; it was perhaps impossible but the titular king shouldgrow at last uneasily conscious of the _maire de palais_ at his side, orthe king-maker be at last offended by some shadow of distrust orassumption in his creature. I repeat the words king-maker and creature;it is so that Mataafa himself conceives of their relation: surely notwithout justice; for, had he not contended and prevailed, and beenhelped by the folly of consuls and the fury of the storm, Laupepa musthave died in exile.
Foreigners in these islands know little of the course of nativeintrigue. Partly the Samoans cannot explain, partly they will not tell.Ask how much a master can follow of the puerile politics in any school;so much and no more we may understand of the events which surround andmenace us with their results. The missions may perhaps have been toblame. Missionaries are perhaps apt to meddle overmuch outside theirdiscipline; it is a fault which should be judged with mercy; the problemis sometimes so insidiously presented that even a moderate and able manis betrayed beyond his own intention; and the missionary in such a landas Samoa is something else besides a minister of mere religion; herepresents civilisation, he is condemned to be an organ of reform, hecould scarce evade (even if he desired) a certain influence in politicalaffairs. And it is believed, besides, by those who fancy they know, thatthe effective force of division between Mataafa and Laupepa came fromthe natives rather than from whites. Before the end of 1890, at least,it began to be rumoured that there was dispeace between the twoMalietoas; and doubtless this had an unsettling influence throughout theislands. But there was another ingredient of anxiety. The Berlinconvention had long closed its sittings; the text of the Act had beenlong in our hands; commissioners were announced to right the wrongs ofthe land question, and two high officials, a chief justice and apresident, to guide policy and administer law in Samoa. Their coming wasexpected with an impatience, with a childishness of trust, that canhardly be exaggerated. Months passed, these angel-deliverers stilldelayed to arrive, and the impatience of the natives became changed toan ominous irritation. They have had much experience of being deceived,and they began to think they were deceived again. A sudden crop ofsuperstitious stories buzzed about the islands. Rivers had come downred; unknown fishes had been taken on the reef and found to be markedwith menacing runes; a headless lizard crawled among chiefs in council;the gods of Upolu and Savaii made war by night, they swam the straits tobattle, and, defaced by dreadful wounds, they had besieged the house ofa medical missionary. Readers will remember the portents in mediaevalchronicles, or those in _Julius Caesar_ when
"Fierce fiery warriors fought
upon the clouds In ranks and squadrons."
And doubtless such fabrications are, in simple societies, a naturalexpression of discontent; and those who forge, and even those who spreadthem, work towards a conscious purpose.
Early in January 1891 this period of expectancy was brought to an end bythe arrival of Conrad Cedarcrantz, chief justice of Samoa. The event washailed with acclamation, and there was much about the new official toincrease the hopes already entertained. He was seen to be a man ofculture and ability; in public, of an excellent presence--in private, ofa most engaging cordiality. But there was one point, I scarce knowwhether to say of his character or policy, which immediately anddisastrously affected public feeling in the islands. He had an aversion,part judicial, part perhaps constitutional, to haste; and he announcedthat, until he should have well satisfied his own mind, he should donothing; that he would rather delay all than do aught amiss. It wasimpossible to hear this without academical approval; impossible to hearit without practical alarm. The natives desired to see activity; theydesired to see many fair speeches taken on a body of deeds and works ofbenefit. Fired by the event of the war, filled with impossible hopes,they might have welcomed in that hour a ruler of the stamp of Brandeis,breathing hurry, perhaps dealing blows. And the chief justice,unconscious of the fleeting opportunity, ripened his opinionsdeliberately in Mulinuu; and had been already the better part of half ayear in the islands before he went through the form of opening hiscourt. The curtain had risen; there was no play. A reaction, a chillsense of disappointment, passed about the island; and intrigue, onemoment suspended, was resumed.
In the Berlin Act, the three Powers recognise, on the threshold, "theindependence of the Samoan government, and the free right of the nativesto elect their chief or king and choose their form of government." True,the text continues that, "in view of the difficulties that surround anelection in the present disordered condition of the government,"Malietoa Laupepa shall be recognised as king, "unless the three Powersshall by common accord otherwise declare." But perhaps few natives havefollowed it so far, and even those who have, were possibly all castabroad again by the next clause: "and his successor shall be dulyelected according to the laws and customs of Samoa." The right to elect,freely given in one sentence, was suspended in the next, and a line orso further on appeared to be reconveyed by a side-wind. The reasonoffered for suspension was ludicrously false; in May 1889, when SirEdward Malet moved the matter in the conference, the election of Mataafawas not only certain to have been peaceful, it could not have beenopposed; and behind the English puppet it was easy to suspect the handof Germany. No one is more swift to smell trickery than a Samoan; andthe thought, that, under the long, bland, benevolent sentences of theBerlin Act, some trickery lay lurking, filled him with the breath ofopposition. Laupepa seems never to have been a popular king. Mataafa, onthe other hand, holds an unrivalled position in the eyes of hisfellow-countrymen; he was the hero of the war, he had lain with them inthe bush, he had borne the heat and burthen of the day; they began toclaim that he should enjoy more largely the fruits of victory; hisexclusion was believed to be a stroke of German vengeance, his elevationto the kingship was looked for as the fitting crown and copestone of theSamoan triumph; and but a little after the coming of the chief justice,an ominous cry for Mataafa began to arise in the islands. It isdifficult to see what that official could have done but what he did. Hewas loyal, as in duty bound, to the treaty and to Laupepa; and when theorators of the important and unruly islet of Manono demanded to his facea change of kings, he had no choice but to refuse them, and (his reproofbeing unheeded) to suspend the meeting. Whether by any neglect of hisown or the mere force of circumstance, he failed, however, to secure thesympathy, failed even to gain the confidence, of Mataafa. The latter isnot without a sense of his own abilities or of the great service he hasrendered to his native land. He felt himself neglected; at the verymoment when the cry for his elevation rang throughout the group, hethought himself made little of on Mulinuu; and he began to weary of hispart. In this humour, he was exposed to a temptation which I must try toexplain, as best I may be able, to Europeans.
The bestowal of the great name, Malietoa, is in the power of thedistrict of Malie, some seven miles to the westward of Apia. The mostnoisy and conspicuous supporters of that party are the inhabitants ofManono. Hence in the elaborate, allusive oratory of Samoa, Malie isalways referred to by the name of _Pule_ (authority) as having the powerof the name, and Manono by that of _Ainga_ (clan, sept, or household) asforming the immediate family of the chief. But these, though soimportant, are only small communities; and perhaps the chief numericalforce of the Malietoas inhabits the island of Savaii. Savaii has noroyal name to bestow, all the five being in the gift of differentdistricts of Upolu; but she has the weight of numbers, and in theselatter days has acquired a certain force by the preponderance in hercouncils of a single man, the orator Lauati. The reader will nowunderstand the peculiar significance of a deputation which shouldembrace Lauati and the orators of both Malie and Manono, how it wouldrepresent all that is most effective on the Malietoa side, and all thatis most considerable in Samoan politics, except the opposite feudalparty of the Tupua. And in the temptation brought to bear on Mataafa,even the Tupua was conjoined. Tamasese was dead. His followers hadconceived a not unnatural aversion to all Germans, from which only theloyal Brandeis is excepted; and a not unnatural admiration for theirlate successful adversary. Men of his own blood and clan, men whom hehad fought in the field, whom he had driven from Matautu, who hadsmitten him back time and again from before the rustic bulwarks ofLotoanuu, they approached him hand in hand with their ancestral enemiesand concurred in the same prayer. The treaty (they argued) was notcarried out. The right to elect their king had been granted them; or ifthat were denied or suspended, then the right to elect "his successor."They were dissatisfied with Laupepa, and claimed, "according to the lawsand customs of Samoa," duly to appoint another. The orators of Maliedeclared with irritation that their second appointment was alone validand Mataafa the sole Malietoa; the whole body of malcontents named himas their choice for king; and they requested him in consequence to leaveApia and take up his dwelling in Malie, the name-place of Malietoa; astep which may be described, to European ears, as placing before thecountry his candidacy for the crown.
I do not know when the proposal was first made. Doubtless thedisaffection grew slowly, every trifle adding to its force; doubtlessthere lingered for long a willingness to give the new government atrial. The chief justice at least had been nearly five months in thecountry, and the president, Baron Senfft von Pilsach, rather more than amonth, before the mine was sprung. On May 31, 1891, the house of Mataafawas found empty, he and his chiefs had vanished from Apia, and, what wasworse, three prisoners, liberated from the gaol, had accompanied them intheir secession; two being political offenders, and the third (accusedof murder) having been perhaps set free by accident. Although the stephad been discussed in certain quarters, it took all men by surprise. Theinhabitants at large expected instant war. The officials awakened from adream to recognise the value of that which they had lost. Mataafa atVaiala, where he was the pledge of peace, had perhaps not always beendeemed worthy of particular attention; Mataafa at Malie was seen, twelvehours too late, to be an altogether different quantity. With excess ofzeal on the other side, the officials trooped to their boats andproceeded almost in a body to Malie, where they seem to have employedevery artifice of flattery and every resource of eloquence upon thefugitive high chief. These courtesies, perhaps excessive in themselves,had the unpardonable fault of being offered when too late. Mataafashowed himself facile on small issues, inflexible on the main; herestored the prisoners, he returned with the consuls to Apia on a flyingvisit; he gave his word that peace should be preserved--a pledge inwhich perhaps no one believed at the moment, but which he has sincenobly redeemed. On the rest he was immovable; he had cast the die, hehad declared his candidacy, he had gone to Malie. Thither, after hisvisit to Apia, he returned again; there h
e has practically sinceresided.
Thus was created in the islands a situation, strange in the beginning,and which, as its inner significance is developed, becomes dailystranger to observe. On the one hand, Mataafa sits in Malie, assumes aregal state, receives deputations, heads his letters "Government ofSamoa," tacitly treats the king as a co-ordinate; and yet declareshimself, and in many ways conducts himself, as a law-abiding citizen. Onthe other, the white officials in Mulinuu stand contemplating thephenomenon with eyes of growing stupefaction; now with symptoms ofcollapse, now with accesses of violence. For long, even those wellversed in island manners and the island character daily expected war,and heard imaginary drums beat in the forest. But for now close upon ayear, and against every stress of persuasion and temptation, Mataafa hasbeen the bulwark of our peace. Apia lay open to be seized, he had thepower in his hand, his followers cried to be led on, his enemiesmarshalled him the same way by impotent examples; and he has neverfaltered. Early in the day, a white man was sent from the government ofMulinuu to examine and report upon his actions: I saw the spy on hisreturn; "It was only our rebel that saved us," he said, with a laugh.There is now no honest man in the islands but is well aware of it; nonebut knows that, if we have enjoyed during the past eleven months theconveniences of peace, it is due to the forbearance of "our rebel." Nordoes this part of his conduct stand alone. He calls his party at Maliethe government,--"our government,"--but he pays his taxes to thegovernment at Mulinuu. He takes ground like a king; he has steadily andblandly refused to obey all orders as to his own movements or behaviour;but upon requisition he sends offenders to be tried under the chiefjustice.
We have here a problem of conduct, and what seems an image ofinconsistency, very hard at the first sight to be solved by anyEuropean. Plainly Mataafa does not act at random. Plainly, in the depthsof his Samoan mind, he regards his attitude as regular andconstitutional. It may be unexpected, it may be inauspicious, it may beundesirable; but he thinks it--and perhaps it is--in full accordancewith those "laws and customs of Samoa" ignorantly invoked by thedraughtsmen of the Berlin Act. The point is worth an effort ofcomprehension; a man's life may yet depend upon it. Let us conceive, inthe first place, that there are five separate kingships in Samoa, thoughnot always five different kings; and that though one man, by holding thefive royal names, might become king _in all parts_ of Samoa, there isperhaps no such matter as a kingship of all Samoa. He who holds oneroyal name would be, upon this view, as much a sovereign person as hewho should chance to hold the other four; he would have less territoryand fewer subjects, but the like independence and an equal royalty. NowMataafa, even if all debatable points were decided against him, is stillTuiatua, and as such, on this hypothesis, a sovereign prince. In thesecond place, the draughtsmen of the Act, waxing exceeding bold,employed the word "election," and implicitly justified all precedentedsteps towards the kingship according with the "customs of Samoa." I amnot asking what was intended by the gentlemen who sat and debated verybenignly and, on the whole, wisely in Berlin; I am asking what will beunderstood by a Samoan studying their literary work, the Berlin Act; Iam asking what is the result of taking a word out of one state ofsociety, and applying it to another, of which the writers know less thannothing, and no European knows much. Several interpreters and severaldays were employed last September in the fruitless attempt to convey tothe mind of Laupepa the sense of the word "resignation." What can aSamoan gather from the words, _election? election of a king? election ofa king according to the laws and customs of Samoa_? What are theelectoral measures, what is the method of canvassing, likely to beemployed by two, three, four, or five, more or less absoluteprincelings, eager to evince each other? And who is to distinguish sucha process from the state of war? In such international--or, I shouldsay, interparochial--differences, the nearest we can come towardsunderstanding is to appreciate the cloud of ambiguity in which allparties grope--
"Treading the crude consistence, half on foot, Half flying."
Now, in one part of Mataafa's behaviour his purpose is beyond mistake.Towards the provisions of the Berlin Act, his desire to be formallyobedient is manifest. The Act imposed the tax. He has paid his taxes,although he thus contributes to the ways and means of his immediaterival. The Act decreed the supreme court, and he sends his partisans tobe tried at Mulinuu, although he thus places them (as I shall haveoccasion to show) in a position far from wholly safe. From this literalconformity, in matters regulated, to the terms of the Berlinplenipotentiaries, we may plausibly infer, in regard to the rest, a noless exact observance of the famous and obscure "laws and customs ofSamoa."
But though it may be possible to attain, in the study, to some suchadumbration of an understanding, it were plainly unfair to expect it ofofficials in the hurry of events. Our two white officers haveaccordingly been no more perspicacious than was to be looked for, and Ithink they have sometimes been less wise. It was not wise in thepresident to proclaim Mataafa and his followers rebels and their estatesconfiscated. Such words are not respectable till they repose on force;on the lips of an angry white man, standing alone on a small promontory,they were both dangerous and absurd; they might have provoked ruin;thanks to the character of Mataafa, they only raised a smile and damagedthe authority of government. And again it is not wise in the governmentof Mulinuu to have twice attempted to precipitate hostilities, once inSavaii, once here in the Tuamasanga. The late of the Savaii attempt Inever heard; it seems to have been stillborn. The other passed under myeyes. A war-party was armed in Apia, and despatched across the islandagainst Mataafa villages, where it was to seize the women and children.It was absent for some days, engaged in feasting with those whom it wentout to fight; and returned at last, innocuous and replete. In thisfortunate though undignified ending we may read the fact that thenatives on Laupepa's side are sometimes more wise than their advisers.Indeed, for our last twelve months of miraculous peace under what seemto be two rival kings, the credit is due first of all to Mataafa, andsecond to the half-heartedness, or the forbearance, or both, of thenatives in the other camp. The voice of the two whites has ever been forwar. They have published at least one incendiary proclamation; they havearmed and sent into the field at least one Samoan war-party; they havecontinually besieged captains of war-ships to attack Malie, and thecaptains of the war-ships have religiously refused. Thus in the lasttwelve months our European rulers have drawn a picture of themselves, asbearded like the pard, full of strange oaths, and gesticulating likesemaphores; while over against them Mataafa reposes smilingly obstinate,and their own retainers surround them, frowningly inert. Into thequestion of motive I refuse to enter; but if we come to war in theseislands, and with no fresh occasion, it will be a manufactured war, andone that has been manufactured, against the grain of opinion, by twoforeigners.
For the last and worst of the mistakes on the Laupepa side it would beunfair to blame any but the king himself. Capable both of virtuousresolutions and of fits of apathetic obstinacy, His Majesty is usuallythe whip-top of competitive advisers; and his conduct is so unstable asto wear at times an appearance of treachery which would surprise himselfif he could see it. Take, for example, the experience of LieutenantUlfsparre, late chief of police, and (so to speak) commander of theforces. His men were under orders for a certain hour; he found himselfalmost alone at the place of muster, and learned the king had sent thesoldiery on errands. He sought an audience, explained that he was hereto implant discipline, that (with this purpose in view) his men couldonly receive orders through himself, and if that condition were notagreed to and faithfully observed, he must send in his papers. The kingwas as usual easily persuaded, the interview passed and ended to thesatisfaction of all parties engaged--and the bargain was kept for oneday. On the day after, the troops were again dispersed as post-runners,and their commander resigned. With such a sovereign, I repeat, it wouldbe unfair to blame any individual minister for any specific fault. Andyet the policy of our two whites against Mataafa has appeared uniformlyso excessive and implacable, that the
blame of the last scandal is laidgenerally at their doors. It is yet fresh. Lauati, towards the end oflast year, became deeply concerned about the situation; and by greatpersonal exertions and the charms of oratory brought Savaii and Manonointo agreement upon certain terms of compromise: Laupepa still to beking, Mataafa to accept a high executive office comparable to that ofour own prime minister, and the two governments to coalesce. IntractableManono was a party. Malie was said to view the proposal withresignation, if not relief. Peace was thought secure. The night beforethe king was to receive Lauati, I met one of his company,--the familychief, Iina,--and we shook hands over the unexpected issue of ourtroubles. What no one dreamed was that Laupepa would refuse. And he did.He refused undisputed royalty for himself and peace for these unhappyislands; and the two whites on Mulinuu rightly or wrongly got the blameof it.
But their policy has another and a more awkward side. About the time ofthe secession to Malie, many ugly things were said; I will not repeatthat which I hope and believe the speakers did not wholly mean; let itsuffice that, if rumour carried to Mataafa the language I have heardused in my own house and before my own native servants, he would behighly justified in keeping clear of Apia and the whites. One gentlemanwhose opinion I respect, and am so bold as to hope I may in some pointsmodify, will understand the allusion and appreciate my reserve. Aboutthe same time there occurred an incident, upon which I must be moreparticular. _A_ was a gentleman who had long been an intimate ofMataafa's, and had recently (upon account, indeed, of the secession toMalie) more or less wholly broken off relations. To him came one whom Ishall call _B_ with a dastardly proposition. It may have been _B's_ own,in which case he were the more unpardonable but from the closeness ofhis intercourse with the chief justice, as well as from the terms usedin the interview, men judged otherwise. It was proposed that _A_ shouldsimulate a renewal of the friendship, decoy Mataafa to a suitable place,and have him there arrested. What should follow in those days of violentspeech was at the least disputable; and the proposal was of courserefused. "You do not understand," was the base rejoinder. "_You_ willhave no discredit. The Germans are to take the blame of the arrest." Ofcourse, upon the testimony of a gentleman so depraved, it were unfair tohang a dog; and both the Germans and the chief justice must be heldinnocent. But the chief justice has shown that he can himself be led, byhis animosity against Mataafa, into questionable acts. Certain nativesof Malie were accused of stealing pigs; the chief justice summoned themthrough Mataafa; several were sent, and along with them a writtenpromise that, if others were required, these also should be forthcomingupon requisition. Such as came were duly tried and acquitted; andMataafa's offer was communicated to the chief justice, who made a formalanswer, and the same day (in pursuance of his constant design to haveMalie attacked by war-ships) reported to one of the consuls that hiswarrant would not run in the country and that certain of the accused hadbeen withheld. At least, this is not fair dealing; and the next instanceI have to give is possibly worse. For one blunder the chief justice isonly so far responsible, in that he was not present where it seems heshould have been, when it was made. He had nothing to do with the sillyproscription of the Mataafas; he has always disliked the measure; and itoccurred to him at last that he might get rid of this dangerousabsurdity and at the same time reap a further advantage. Let Mataafaleave Malie for any other district in Samoa; it should be construed asan act of submission and the confiscation and proscription instantlyrecalled. This was certainly well devised; the government escaped fromtheir own false position, and by the same stroke lowered the prestige oftheir adversaries. But unhappily the chief justice did not put all hiseggs in one basket. Concurrently with these negotiations he began againto move the captain of one of the war-ships to shell the rebel village;the captain, conceiving the extremity wholly unjustified, not onlyrefused these instances, but more or less publicly complained of theirbeing made; the matter came to the knowledge of the white resident whowas at that time playing the part of intermediary with Malie; and he, innatural anger and disgust, withdrew from the negotiation. Theseduplicities, always deplorable when discovered, are never more fatalthan with men imperfectly civilised. Almost incapable of truththemselves, they cherish a particular score of the same fault in whites.And Mataafa is besides an exceptional native. I would scarce dare say ofany Samoan that he is truthful, though I seem to have encountered thephenomenon; but I must say of Mataafa that he seems distinctly andconsistently averse to lying.
For the affair of the Manono prisoners, the chief justice is only againin so far answerable as he was at the moment absent from the seat of hisduties; and the blame falls on Baron Senfft von Pilsach, president ofthe municipal council. There were in Manono certain dissidents, loyal toLaupepa. Being Manono people, I daresay they were very annoying to theirneighbours; the majority, as they belonged to the same island, were themore impatient; and one fine day fell upon and destroyed the houses andharvests of the dissidents "according to the laws and customs of Samoa."The president went down to the unruly island in a war-ship and waslanded alone upon the beach. To one so much a stranger to the mansuetudeof Polynesians, this must have seemed an act of desperation; and thebaron's gallantry met with a deserved success. The six ring-leaders,acting in Mataafa's interest, had been guilty of a delict; withMataafa's approval, they delivered themselves over to be tried. OnFriday, September 4, 1891, they were convicted before a nativemagistrate and sentenced to six months' imprisonment; or, I shouldrather say, detention; for it was expressly directed that they were tobe used as gentlemen and not as prisoners, that the door was to standopen, and that all their wishes should be gratified. This extraordinarysentence fell upon the accused like a thunderbolt. There is no need tosuppose perfidy, where a careless interpreter suffices to explain all;but the six chiefs claim to have understood their coming to Apia as anact of submission merely formal, that they came in fact under an impliedindemnity, and that the president stood pledged to see them scatheless.Already, on their way from the court-house, they were tumultuouslysurrounded by friends and clansmen, who pressed and cried upon them toescape; Lieutenant Ulfsparre must order his men to load; and with thatthe momentary effervescence died away. Next day, Saturday, 5th, thechief justice took his departure from the islands--a step never yetexplained and (in view of the doings of the day before and theremonstrances of other officials) hard to justify. The president, anamiable and brave young man of singular inexperience, was thus left toface the growing difficulty by himself. The clansmen of the prisoners,to the number of near upon a hundred, lay in Vaiusu, a village half waybetween Apia and Malie; there they talked big, thence sent menacingmessages; the gaol should be broken in the night, they said, and the sixmartyrs rescued. Allowance is to be made for the character of the peopleof Manono, turbulent fellows, boastful of tongue, but of late days notthought to be answerably bold in person. Yet the moment was anxious. Thegovernment of Mulinuu had gained an important moral victory by thesurrender and condemnation of the chiefs; and it was needful the victoryshould be maintained. The guard upon the gaol was accordinglystrengthened; a war-party was sent to watch the Vaiusu road under Asi;and the chiefs of the Vaimaunga were notified to arm and assemble theirmen. It must be supposed the president was doubtful of the loyalty ofthese assistants. He turned at least to the war-ships, where it seems hewas rebuffed; thence he fled into the arms of the wrecker gang, where hewas unhappily more successful. The government of Washington hadpresented to the Samoan king the wrecks of the _Trenton_ and the_Vandalia_; an American syndicate had been formed to break them up; anexperienced gang was in consequence settled in Apia; and the report ofsubmarine explosions had long grown familiar in the ears of residents.From these artificers the president obtained a supply of dynamite, theneedful mechanism, and the loan of a mechanic; the gaol was mined, andthe Manono people in Vaiusu were advertised of the fact in a lettersigned by Laupepa. Partly by the indiscretion of the mechanic, who hadsought to embolden himself (like Lady Macbeth) with liquor for hissomewhat dreadful task, the story leaked immedi
ately out and raised avery general, or I might say almost universal, reprobation. Some blamedthe proposed deed because it was barbarous and a foul example to setbefore a race half barbarous itself; others because it was illegal;others again because, in the face of so weak an enemy, it appearedpitifully pusillanimous; almost all because it tended to precipitateand embitter war. In the midst of the turmoil he had raised, and underthe immediate pressure of certain indignant white residents, the baronfell back upon a new expedient, certainly less barbarous, perhaps nomore legal; and on Monday afternoon, September 7th, packed his sixprisoners on board the cutter _Lancashire Lass_, and deported them tothe neighbouring low-island group of the Tokelaus. We watched her put tosea with mingled feelings. Anything were better than dynamite, but thiswas not good. The men had been summoned in the name of law; they hadsurrendered; the law had uttered its voice; they were under one sentenceduly delivered; and now the president, by no right with which we wereacquainted, had exchanged it for another. It was perhaps no lessfortunate, though it was more pardonable in a stranger, that he hadincreased the punishment to that which, in the eyes of Samoans, ranksnext to death,--exile from their native land and friends. And the_Lancashire Lass_ appeared to carry away with her into the uttermostparts of the sea the honour of the administration and the prestige ofthe supreme court.
The policy of the government towards Mataafa has thus been of a piecethroughout; always would-be violent, it has been almost always defacedwith some appearance of perfidy or unfairness. The policy of Mataafa(though extremely bewildering to any white) appears everywhereconsistent with itself, and the man's bearing has always been calm. Butto represent the fulness of the contrast, it is necessary that I shouldgive some description of the two capitals, or the two camps, and theways and means of the regular and irregular government.
_Mulinuu_. Mulinuu, the reader may remember, is a narrow finger of landplanted in cocoa-palms, which runs forth into the lagoon perhaps threequarters of a mile. To the east is the bay of Apia. To the west, thereis, first of all, a mangrove swamp, the mangroves excellently green, themud ink-black, and its face crawled upon by countless insects and blackand scarlet crabs. Beyond the swamp is a wide and shallow bay of thelagoon, bounded to the west by Faleula Point. Faleula is the nextvillage to Malie; so that from the top of some tall palm in Malie itshould be possible to descry against the eastern heavens the palms ofMulinuu. The trade wind sweeps over the low peninsula and cleanses itfrom the contagion of the swamp. Samoans have a quaint phrase in theirlanguage; when out of health, they seek exposed places on the shore "toeat the wind," say they; and there can be few better places for such adiet than the point of Mulinuu.
Two European houses stand conspicuous on the harbour side; in Europe theywould seem poor enough, but they are fine houses for Samoa. One is new;it was built the other day under the apologetic title of a GovernmentHouse, to be the residence of Baron Senfft. The other is historical; itwas built by Brandeis on a mortgage, and is now occupied by the chiefjustice on conditions never understood, the rumour going uncontradictedthat he sits rent free. I do not say it is true, I say it goesuncontradicted; and there is one peculiarity of our officials in anutshell,--their remarkable indifference to their own character. From theone house to the other extends a scattering village for the Faipule ornative parliament men. In the days of Tamasese this was a brave place,both his own house and those of the Faipule good, and the wholeexcellently ordered and approached by a sanded way. It is now like aneglected bush-town, and speaks of apathy in all concerned. But the chiefscandal of Mulinuu is elsewhere. The house of the president stands justto seaward of the isthmus, where the watch is set nightly, and armed menguard the uneasy slumbers of the government. On the landward side therestands a monument to the poor German lads who fell at Fangalii, justbeyond which the passer-by may chance to observe a little house standingbackward from the road. It is such a house as a commoner might use in abush village; none could dream that it gave shelter even to a familychief; yet this is the palace of Malietoa-Natoaitele-Tamasoalii Laupepa,king of Samoa. As you sit in his company under this humble shelter, youshall see, between the posts, the new house of the president. His Majestyhimself beholds it daily, and the tenor of his thoughts may be divined.The fine house of a Samoan chief is his appropriate attribute; yet, afterseventeen months, the government (well housed themselves) have not yetfound--have not yet sought--a roof-tree for their sovereign. And thelodging is typical. I take up the president's financial statement ofSeptember 8, 1891. I find the king's allowance to figure at seventy-fivedollars a month; and I find that he is further (though somewhatobscurely) debited with the salaries of either two or three clerks. Takethe outside figure, and the sum expended on or for His Majesty amounts toninety-five dollars in the month. Lieutenant Ulfsparre and Dr. Hagberg(the chief justice's Swedish friends) drew in the same period one hundredand forty and one hundred dollars respectively on account of salaryalone. And it should be observed that Dr. Hagberg was employed, or atleast paid, from government funds, in the face of His Majesty's expressand reiterated protest. In another column of the statement, one hundredand seventy-five dollars and seventy-five cents are debited for the chiefjustice's travelling expenses. I am of the opinion that if His Majestydesired (or dared) to take an outing, he would be asked to bear thecharge from his allowance. But although I think the chief justice haddone more nobly to pay for himself, I am far from denying that hisexcursions were well meant; he should indeed be praised for having madethem; and I leave the charge out of consideration in the followingstatement.
ON THE ONE HAND
Salary of Chief Justice Cedarkrantz $500 Salary of President Baron Senfft von Pilsach (about) 415 Salary of Lieutenant Ulfsparre, Chief of Police 140 Salary of Dr. Hagberg, Private Secretary to the Chief Justice 100 ----- Total monthly salary to four whites, one of them paid against His Majesty's protest $1155
ON THE OTHER HAND
Total monthly payments to and for His Majesty the King, including allowance and hire of three clerks, one of these placed under the rubric of extraordinary expenses $95
This looks strange enough and mean enough already. But we have ground ofcomparison in the practice of Brandeis.
Brandeis, white prime minister $200 Tamasese (about) 160 White Chief of Police 100
Under Brandeis, in other words, the king received the second highestallowance on the sheet; and it was a good second, and the third was abad third. And it must be borne in mind that Tamasese himself waspointed and laughed at among natives. Judge, then, what is muttered ofLaupepa, housed in his shanty before the president's doors like Lazarusbefore the doors of Dives; receiving not so much of his own taxes as theprivate secretary of the law officer; and (in actual salary) little morethan half as much as his own chief of police. It is known besides thathe has protested in vain against the charge for Dr. Hagberg; it is knownthat he has himself applied for an advance and been refused. Money iscertainly a grave subject on Mulinuu; but respect costs nothing, andthrifty officials might have judged it wise to make up in extrapoliteness for what they curtailed of pomp or comfort. One instance maysuffice. Laupepa appeared last summer on a public occasion; thepresident was there--and not even the president rose to greet theentrance of the sovereign. Since about the same period, besides, themonarch must be described as in a state of sequestration. A white man,an Irishman, the true type of all that is most gallant, humorous, andreckless in his country, chose to visit His Majesty and give him someexcellent advice (to make up his difference with Mataafa) couchedunhappily in vivid and figurative language. The adviser now sleeps inthe Pacific, but the evil that he chanced to do lives after him. HisMajesty was greatly (and I must say justly) offended by the freedom ofthe expressions
used; he appealed to his white advisers; and these,whether from want of thought or by design, issued an ignominiousproclamation. Intending visitors to the palace must appear before theirconsuls and justify their business. The majesty of buried Samoa washenceforth only to be viewed (like a private collection) under specialpermit; and was thus at once cut off from the company and opinions ofthe self-respecting. To retain any dignity in such an abject state wouldrequire a man of very different virtues from those claimed by the notunvirtuous Laupepa. He is not designed to ride the whirlwind or directthe storm, rather to be the ornament of private life. He is kind,gentle, patient as Job, conspicuously well-intentioned, of charmingmanners; and when he pleases, he has one accomplishment in which he nowbegins to be alone--I mean that he can pronounce correctly his ownbeautiful language.
The government of Brandeis accomplished a good deal and was continuallyand heroically attempting more. The government of our two whites hasconfined itself almost wholly to paying and receiving salaries. Theyhave built, indeed, a house for the president; they are believed (ifthat be a merit) to have bought the local newspaper with governmentfunds; and their rule has been enlivened by a number of scandals, intowhich I feel with relief that it is unnecessary I should enter. Even ifthe three Powers do not remove these gentlemen, their absurd anddisastrous government must perish by itself of inanition. Native taxes(except perhaps from Mataafa, true to his own private policy) have longbeen beyond hope. And only the other day (May 6th, 1892), on theexpressed ground that there was no guarantee as to how the funds wouldbe expended, and that the president consistently refused to allow theverification of his cash balances, the municipal council has negativedthe proposal to call up further taxes from the whites. All is well thatends even ill, so that it end; and we believe that with the last dollarwe shall see the last of the last functionary. Now when it is so nearlyover, we can afford to smile at this extraordinary passage, though wemust still sigh over the occasion lost.
* * * * *
_Malie._ The way to Malie lies round the shores of Faleula bay andthrough a succession of pleasant groves and villages. The road, one ofthe works of Brandeis, is now cut up by pig fences. Eight times you mustleap a barrier of cocoa posts; the take-off and the landing both in apatch of mire planted with big stones, and the stones sometimes reddenedwith the blood of horses that have gone before. To make these obstaclesmore annoying, you have sometimes to wait while a black boar clamberssedately over the so-called pig fence. Nothing can more thoroughlydepict the worst side of the Samoan character than these uselessbarriers which deface their only road. It was one of the first ordersissued by the government of Mulinuu after the coming of the chiefjustice, to have the passage cleared. It is the disgrace of Mataafa thatthe thing is not yet done.
The village of Malie is the scene of prosperity and peace. In a verygood account of a visit there, published in the _Australasian_, thewriter describes it to be fortified; she must have been deceived by theappearance of some pig walls on the shore. There is no fortification, noparade of war. I understand that from one to five hundred fighting menare always within reach; but I have never seen more than five togetherunder arms, and these were the king's guard of honour. A Sabbath quietbroods over the well-weeded green, the picketed horses, the troops ofpigs, the round or oval native dwellings. Of these there are asurprising number, very fine of their sort: yet more are in thebuilding; and in the midst a tall house of assembly, by far the greatestSamoan structure now in these islands, stands about half finished andalready makes a figure in the landscape. No bustle is to be observed,but the work accomplished testifies to a still activity.
The centre-piece of all is the high chief himself,Malietoa-Tuiatua-Tuiaana Mataafa, king--or not king--orking-claimant--of Samoa. All goes to him, all comes from him. Nativedeputations bring him gifts and are feasted in return. White travellers,to their indescribable irritation, are (on his approach) waved from hispath 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 manyquarters of the islands, delivering and hearing those ornate and elegantorations in which the Samoan heart delights. About himself and all hissurroundings there breathes a striking sense of order, tranquillity, andnative 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; hisjaw perceptibly underhung, which gives him something of the expressionof a benevolent mastiff; his manners dignified and a thoughtinsinuating, with an air of a Catholic prelate. He was never married,and a natural daughter attends upon his guests. Long since he made a vowof chastity,--"to live as our Lord lived on this earth," and Polynesiansreport with bated breath that he has kept it. On all such points, trueto his Catholic training, he is inclined to be even rigid. Lauati, thepivot of Savaii, has recently repudiated his wife and taken a fairer;and when I was last in Malie, Mataafa (with a strange superiority to hisown interests) had but just despatched a reprimand. In his immediatecircle, in spite of the smoothness of his ways, he is said to be morerespected than beloved; and his influence is the child rather ofauthority than popularity. No Samoan grandee now living need haveattempted that which he has accomplished during the last twelve monthswith 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 wereever possible before. Speaking for myself, I have visited and dwelt inalmost every seat of the Polynesian race, and have met but one man whogave me a stronger impression of character and parts.
About the situation, Mataafa expresses himself with unshaken peace. Tothe chief justice he refers with some bitterness; to Laupepa, with asmile, as "my poor brother." For himself, he stands upon the treaty, andexpects sooner or later an election in which he shall be raised to thechief power. In the meanwhile, or for an alternative, he would willinglyembrace a compromise with Laupepa; to which he would probably add onecondition, that the joint government should remain seated at Malie, asensible but not inconvenient distance from white intrigues and whiteofficials. One circumstance in my last interview particularly pleasedme. The king's chief scribe, Esela, is an old employe under Tamasese,and the talk ran some while upon the character of Brandeis. Loyalty inthis world is after all not thrown away; Brandeis was guilty, in Samoaneyes, of many irritating errors, but he stood true to Tamasese; in thecourse of time a sense of this virtue and of his general uprightness hasobliterated the memory of his mistakes; and it would have done his heartgood if he could have heard his old scribe and his old adversary join inpraising him. "Yes," concluded Mataafa, "I wish we had Planteisa backagain." _A quelque chose malheur est bon._ So strong is the impressionproduced by the defects of Cedarcrantz and Baron Senfft, that I believeMataafa far from singular in this opinion, and that the return of theupright Brandeis might be even welcome to many.
I must add a last touch to the picture of Malie and the pretender'slife. About four in the morning, the visitor in his house will beawakened by the note of a pipe, blown without, very softly and to asoothing melody. This is Mataafa's private luxury to lead on pleasantdreams. We have a bird here in Samoa that about the same hour ofdarkness sings in the bush. The father of Mataafa, while he lived, wasa great friend and protector to all living creatures, and passed underthe by-name of _the King of Birds_. It may be it was among the woodlandclients of the sire that the son acquired his fancy for this morningmusic.
* * * * *
I have now sought to render without extenuation the impressionsreceived: of dignity, plenty, and peace at Malie, of bankruptcy anddistraction at Mulinuu. And I wish I might here bring to an endungrateful labours. But I am sensible that there remain two points onwhich it would be improper to be silent. I should be blamed if I did notindicate a practical conclusion; and I should blame myself if I did notdo a little justice to that tried company of the Land Commissioners.
The Land Commission has been in m
any senses unfortunate. The originalGerman member, a gentleman of the name of Eggert, fell early intoprecarious health; his work was from the first interrupted, he was atlast (to the regret of all that knew him) invalided home; and hissuccessor had but just arrived. In like manner, the first Americancommissioner, Henry C. Ide, a man of character and intelligence, wasrecalled (I believe by private affairs) when he was but just settlinginto the spirit of the work; and though his place was promptly filled byex-Governor Ormsbee, a worthy successor, distinguished by strong andvivacious common sense, the break was again sensible. The Englishcommissioner, my friend Bazett Michael Haggard, is thus the only one whohas continued at his post since the beginning. And yet, in spite ofthese unusual changes, the Commission has a record perhaps unrivalledamong international commissions. It has been unanimous practically fromthe first until the last; and out of some four hundred cases disposedof, there is but one on which the members were divided. It was the moreunfortunate they should have early fallen in a difficulty with thechief justice. The original ground of this is supposed to be adifference of opinion as to the import of the Berlin Act, on which, as alayman, it would be unbecoming if I were to offer an opinion. But itmust always seem as if the chief justice had suffered himself to beirritated beyond the bounds of discretion. It must always seem as if hisoriginal attempt to deprive the commissioners of the services of asecretary and the use of a safe were even senseless; and his step inprinting and posting a proclamation denying their jurisdiction wereequally impolitic and undignified. The dispute had a secondary resultworse than itself. The gentleman appointed to be Natives' Advocateshared the chief justice's opinion, was his close intimate, advised withhim almost daily, and drifted at last into an attitude of opposition tohis colleagues. He suffered himself besides (being a layman in law) toembrace the interest of his clients with something of the warmth of apartisan. Disagreeable scenes occurred in court; the advocate was morethan once reproved, he was warned that his consultations with the judgeof appeal tended to damage his own character and to lower the credit ofthe appellate court. Having lost some cases on which he set importance,it should seem that he spoke unwisely among natives. A sudden cry ofcolour prejudice went up; and Samoans were heard to assure each otherthat it was useless to appear before the Land Commission, which wassworn to support the whites.
This deplorable state of affairs was brought to an end by the departurefrom Samoa of the Natives' Advocate. He was succeeded _pro tempore_ by ayoung New Zealander, E. W. Gurr, not much more versed in law thanhimself, and very much less so in Samoan. Whether by more skill orbetter fortune, Gurr has been able in the course of a few weeks torecover for the natives several important tracts of land; and theprejudice against the Commission seems to be abating as fast as itarose. I should not omit to say that, in the eagerness of the originaladvocate, there was much that was amiable; nor must I fail to point outhow much there was of blindness. Fired by the ardour of pursuit, heseems to have regarded his immediate clients as the only natives extantand the epitome and emblem of the Samoan race. Thus, in the case thatwas the most exclaimed against as "an injustice to natives," his client,Puaauli, was certainly nonsuited. But in that intricate affair who lostthe money? The German firm. And who got the land? Other natives. Totwist such a decision into evidence, either of a prejudice againstSamoans or a partiality to whites, is to keep one eye shut and have theother bandaged.
And lastly, one word as to the future. Laupepa and Mataafa stand overagainst each other, rivals with no third competitor. They may be said tohold the great name of Malietoa in commission; each has borne the style,each exercised the authority, of a Samoan king; one is secure of thesmall but compact and fervent following of the Catholics, the other hasthe sympathies of a large part of the Protestant majority, and upon anysign of Catholic aggression would have more. With men so nearlybalanced, it may be asked whether a prolonged successful exercise ofpower be possible for either. In the case of the feeble Laupepa, it iscertainly not; we have the proof before us. Nor do I think we shouldjudge, from what we see to-day, that it would be possible, or wouldcontinue to be possible, even for the kingly Mataafa. It is always theeasier game to be in opposition. The tale of David and Saul wouldinfallibly be re-enacted; once more we shall have two kings in theland,--the latent and the patent; and the house of the first will becomeonce more the resort of "every one that is in distress, and every onethat is in debt, and every one that is discontented." Against such oddsit is my fear that Mataafa might contend in vain; it is beyond thebounds of my imagination that Laupepa should contend at all. Foreignships and bayonets is the cure proposed in Mulinuu. And certainly, ifpeople at home desire that money should be thrown away and blood shedin Samoa, an effect of a kind, and for the time, may be produced. Itsnature and prospective durability I will ask readers of this volume toforecast for themselves. There is one way to peace and unity: thatLaupepa and Mataafa should be again conjoined on the best termsprocurable. There may be other ways, although I cannot see them; but noteven malevolence, not even stupidity, can deny that this is one. Itseems, indeed, so obvious, and sure, and easy, that men look about withamazement and suspicion, seeking some hidden motive why it should not beadopted.
To Laupepa's opposition, as shown in the case of the Lauati scheme, nodweller in Samoa will give weight, for they know him to be as putty inthe hands of his advisers. It may be right, it may be wrong, but we aremany of us driven to the conclusion that the stumbling-block isFangalii, and that the memorial of that affair shadows appropriately thehouse of a king who reigns in right of it. If this be all, it should nottrouble us long. Germany has shown she can be generous; it now remainsfor her only to forget a natural but certainly ill-grounded prejudice,and allow to him, who was sole king before the plenipotentiariesassembled, and who would be sole king to-morrow if the Berlin Act couldbe rescinded, a fitting share of rule. The future of Samoa should liethus in the hands of a single man, on whom the eyes of Europe arealready 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 reignshas bled on too many august scenes of victory to remember for ever ablundering skirmish in the plantation of Vailele. It is to him--to thesovereign of the wise Stuebel and the loyal Brandeis,--that I make myappeal.
_May_ 25, 1892.
ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS
TO
THREE OLD SHIPMATES AMONG THE ISLANDS
HARRY HENDERSON BEN HIRD JACK BUCKLAND
THEIR FRIEND
R. L. S.
THE BEACH OF FALESA
(BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A SOUTH SEA TRADER)
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17 Page 12