CHAPTER II
THE ELEMENTS OF DISCORD: FOREIGN
The huge majority of Samoans, like other God-fearing folk in othercountries, are perfectly content with their own manners. And upon onecondition, it is plain they might enjoy themselves far beyond theaverage of man. Seated in islands very rich in food, the idleness of themany idle would scarce matter; and the provinces might continue tobestow their names among rival pretenders, and fall into war and enjoythat a while, and drop into peace and enjoy that, in a manner highly tobe envied. But the condition--that they should be let alone--is now nolonger possible. More than a hundred years ago, and following closely onthe heels of Cook, an irregular invasion of adventurers began to swarmabout the isles of the Pacific. The seven sleepers of Polynesia stand,still but half aroused, in the midst of the century of competition. Andthe island races, comparable to a shopful of crockery launched upon thestream of time, now fall to make their desperate voyage among pots ofbrass and adamant.
Apia, the port and mart, is the seat of the political sickness of Samoa.At the foot of a peaked, woody mountain, the coast makes a deep indent,roughly semicircular. In front the barrier reef is broken by the freshwater of the streams; if the swell be from the north, it enters almostwithout diminution; and the war-ships roll dizzily at their moorings,and along the fringing coral which follows the configuration of thebeach, the surf breaks with a continuous uproar. In wild weather, as theworld knows, the roads are untenable. Along the whole shore, which iseverywhere green and level and overlooked by inland mountain-tops, thetown lies drawn out in strings and clusters. The western horn isMulinuu, the eastern, Matautu; and from one to the other of theseextremes, I ask the reader to walk. He will find more of the history ofSamoa spread before his eyes in that excursion, than has yet beencollected in the blue-books or the white-books of the world. Mulinuu(where the walk is to begin) is a flat, wind-swept promontory, plantedwith palms, backed against a swamp of mangroves, and occupied by arather miserable village. The reader is informed that this is the properresidence of the Samoan kings; he will be the more surprised to observea board set up, and to read that this historic village is the propertyof the German firm. But these boards, which are among the commonestfeatures of the landscape, may be rather taken to imply that the claimhas been disputed. A little farther east he skirts the stores, offices,and barracks of the firm itself. Thence he will pass through Matafele,the one really town-like portion of this long string of villages, byGerman bars and stores and the German consulate; and reach the Catholicmission and cathedral standing by the mouth of a small river. The bridgewhich crosses here (bridge of Mulivai) is a frontier; behind isMatafele; beyond, Apia proper; behind, Germans are supreme; beyond, withbut few exceptions, all is Anglo-Saxon. Here the reader will go forwardpast the stores of Mr. Moors (American) and Messrs. MacArthur (English);past the English mission, the office of the English newspaper, theEnglish church, and the old American consulate, till he reaches themouth of a larger river, the Vaisingano. Beyond, in Matautu, his waytakes him in the shade of many trees and by scattered dwellings, andpresently brings him beside a great range of offices, the place and themonument of a German who fought the German firm during his life. Hishouse (now he is dead) remains pointed like a discharged cannon at thecitadel of his old enemies. Fitly enough, it is at present leased andoccupied by Englishmen. A little farther, and the reader gains theeastern flanking angle of the bay, where stands the pilot-house andsignal-post, and whence he can see, on the line of the main coast of theisland, the British and the new American consulates.
The course of his walk will have been enlivened by a considerable to andfro of pleasure and business. He will have encountered many varieties ofwhites,--sailors, merchants, clerks, priests, Protestant missionaries intheir pith helmets, and the nondescript hangers-on of any island beach.And the sailors are sometimes in considerable force; but not theresidents. He will think at times there are more signboards than men toown them. It may chance it is a full day in the harbour; he will thenhave seen all manner of ships, from men-of-war and deep-sea packets tothe labour vessels of the German firm and the cockboat island schooner;and if he be of an arithmetical turn, he may calculate that there aremore whites afloat in Apia bay than whites ashore in the wholeArchipelago. On the other hand, he will have encountered all ranks ofnatives, chiefs and pastors in their scrupulous white clothes; perhapsthe king himself, attended by guards in uniform; smiling policemen withtheir pewter stars; girls, women, crowds of cheerful children. And hewill have asked himself with some surprise where these reside. Here andthere, in the back yards of European establishments, he may have had aglimpse of a native house elbowed in a corner; but since he leftMulinuu, none on the beach where islanders prefer to live, scarce one onthe line of street. The handful of whites have everything; the nativeswalk in a foreign town. A year ago, on a knoll behind a bar-room, hemight have observed a native house guarded by sentries and flown over bythe standard of Samoa. He would then have been told it was the seat ofgovernment, driven (as I have to relate) over the Mulivai and frombeyond the German town into the Anglo-Saxon. To-day, he will learn ithas been carted back again to its old quarters. And he will think itsignificant that the king of the islands should be thus shuttled to andfro in his chief city at the nod of aliens. And then he will observe afeature more significant still: a house with some concourse of affairs,policemen and idlers hanging by, a man at a bank-counter overhaulingmanifests, perhaps a trial proceeding in the front verandah, or perhapsthe council breaking up in knots after a stormy sitting. And he willremember that he is in the _Eleele Sa_, the "Forbidden Soil," or NeutralTerritory of the treaties; that the magistrate whom he has just seentrying native criminals is no officer of the native king's; and thatthis, the only port and place of business in the kingdom, collects andadministers its own revenue for its own behoof by the hands of whitecouncillors and under the supervision of white consuls. Let him gofurther afield. He will find the roads almost everywhere to cease or tobe made impassable by native pig-fences, bridges to be quite unknown,and houses of the whites to become at once a rare exception. Set asidethe German plantations, and the frontier is sharp. At the boundary ofthe _Eleele Sa_, Europe ends, Samoa begins. Here, then, is a singularstate of affairs: all the money, luxury, and business of the kingdomcentred in one place; that place excepted from the native government andadministered by whites for whites; and the whites themselves holding itnot in common but in hostile camps, so that it lies between them like abone between two dogs, each growling, each clutching his own end.
Should Apia ever choose a coat of arms, I have a motto ready: "EnterRumour painted full of tongues." The majority of the natives doextremely little; the majority of the whites are merchants with somefour mails in the month, shopkeepers with some ten or twenty customers aday, and gossip is the common resource of all. The town hums to theday's news, and the bars are crowded with amateur politicians. Some areoffice-seekers, and earwig king and consul, and compass the fall ofofficials, with an eye to salary. Some are humorists, delighted with thepleasure of faction for itself. "I never saw so good a place as thisApia," said one of these; "you can be in a new conspiracy every day!"Many, on the other hand, are sincerely concerned for the future of thecountry. The quarters are so close and the scale is so small, thatperhaps not any one can be trusted always to preserve his temper. Everyone tells everything he knows; that is our country sickness. Nearlyevery one has been betrayed at times, and told a trifle more; the wayour sickness takes the predisposed. And the news flies, and the tongueswag, and fists are shaken. Pot boil and caldron bubble!
Within the memory of man, the white people of Apia lay in the worstsqualor of degradation. They are now unspeakably improved, both men andwomen. To-day they must be called a more than fairly respectablepopulation, and a much more than fairly intelligent. The whole wouldprobably not fill the ranks of even an English half-battalion, yet thereare a surprising number above the average in sense, knowledge, andmanners. The trouble (for Samoa) is that they are all h
ere after alivelihood. Some are sharp practitioners, some are famous (justly ornot) for foul play in business. Tales fly. One merchant warns youagainst his neighbour; the neighbour on the first occasion is found toreturn the compliment: each with a good circumstantial story to theproof. There is so much copra in the islands, and no more; a man's shareof it is his share of bread; and commerce, like politics, is herenarrowed to a focus, shows its ugly side, and becomes as personal asfisticuffs. Close at their elbows, in all this contention, stands thenative looking on. Like a child, his true analogue, he observes,apprehends, misapprehends, and is usually silent. As in a child, aconsiderable intemperance of speech is accompanied by some power ofsecrecy. News he publishes; his thoughts have often to be dug for. Helooks on at the rude career of the dollar-hunt, and wonders. He seesthese men rolling in a luxury beyond the ambition of native kings; hehears them accused by each other of the meanest trickery; he knows someof them to be guilty; and what is he to think? He is strongly consciousof his own position as the common milk-cow; and what is he to do?"Surely these white men on the beach are not great chiefs?" is a commonquestion, perhaps asked with some design of flattering the personquestioned. And one, stung by the last incident into an unusual flow ofEnglish, remarked to me: "I begin to be weary of white men on thebeach."
But the true centre of trouble, the head of the boil of which Samoalanguishes, is the German firm. From the conditions of business, a greatisland house must ever be an inheritance of care; and it chances thatthe greatest still afoot has its chief seat in Apia bay, and has sunkthe main part of its capital in the island of Upolu. When its founder,John Caesar Godeffroy, went bankrupt over Russian paper and Westphalianiron, his most considerable asset was found to be the South Seabusiness. This passed (I understand) through the hands of BaringBrothers in London, and is now run by a company rejoicing in theGargantuan name of the _Deutsche Handels und Plantagen Gesellschaft fuerSued-See Inseln zu Hamburg_. This piece of literature is (in practice)shortened to the D.H. and P.G., the Old Firm, the German Firm, the Firm,and (among humorists) the Long Handle Firm. Even from the deck of anapproaching ship, the island is seen to bear its signature--zones ofcultivation showing in a more vivid tint of green on the dark vest offorest. The total area in use is near ten thousand acres. Hedges offragrant lime enclose, broad avenues intersect them. You shall walk forhours in parks of palm-tree alleys, regular, like soldiers on parade; inthe recesses of the hills you may stumble on a mill-house, toiling andtrembling there, fathoms deep in superincumbent forest. On the carpetof clean sward, troops of horses and herds of handsome cattle may beseen to browse; and to one accustomed to the rough luxuriance of thetropics, the appearance is of fairyland. The managers, many of themGerman sea-captains, are enthusiastic in their new employment.Experiment is continually afoot: coffee and cacao, both of excellentquality, are among the more recent outputs; and from one plantationquantities of pineapples are sent at a particular season to the Sydneymarkets. A hundred and fifty thousand pounds of English money, perhapstwo hundred thousand, lie sunk in these magnificent estates. Inestimating the expense of maintenance quite a fleet of ships must beremembered, and a strong staff of captains, supercargoes, overseers, andclerks. These last mess together at a liberal board; the wages are high,and the staff is inspired with a strong and pleasing sentiment ofloyalty to their employers.
Seven or eight hundred imported men and women toil for the company oncontracts of three or of five years, and at a hypothetical wage of a fewdollars in the month. I am now on a burning question: the labourtraffic; and I shall ask permission in this place only to touch it withthe tongs. Suffice it to say that in Queensland, Fiji, New Caledonia,and Hawaii it has been either suppressed or placed under close publicsupervision. In Samoa, where it still flourishes, there is no regulationof which the public receives any evidence; and the dirty linen of thefirm, if there be any dirty, and if it be ever washed at all, is washedin private. This is unfortunate, if Germans would believe it. But theyhave no idea of publicity, keep their business to themselves, ratheraffect to "move in a mysterious way," and are naturally incensed bycriticisms, which they consider hypocritical, from men who would import"labour" for themselves, if they could afford it, and would probablymaltreat them if they dared. It is said the whip is very busy on some ofthe plantations; it is said that punitive extra-labour, by which thethrall's term of service is extended, has grown to be an abuse; and itis complained that, even where that term is out, much irregularityoccurs in the repatriation of the discharged. To all this I can saynothing, good or bad. A certain number of the thralls, many of them wildnegritos from the west, have taken to the bush, harbour there in a statepartly bestial, or creep into the back quarters of the town to do aday's stealthy labour under the nose of their proprietors. Twelve werearrested one morning in my own boys' kitchen. Farther in the bush, huts,small patches of cultivation, and smoking ovens, have been found byhunters. There are still three runaways in the woods of Tutuila, whitherthey escaped upon a raft. And the Samoans regard these dark-skinnedrangers with extreme alarm; the fourth refugee in Tutuila was shot down(as I was told in that island) while carrying off the virgin of avillage; and tales of cannibalism run round the country, and the nativesshudder about the evening fire. For the Samoans are not cannibals, donot seem to remember when they were, and regard the practice with adisfavour equal to our own.
The firm is Gulliver among the Lilliputs; and it must not be forgotten,that while the small, independent traders are fighting for their ownhand, and inflamed with the usual jealousy against corporations, theGermans are inspired with a sense of the greatness of their affairs andinterests. The thought of the money sunk, the sight of these costly andbeautiful plantations, menaced yearly by the returning forest, and theresponsibility of administering with one hand so many conjunct fortunes,might well nerve the manager of such a company for desperate andquestionable deeds. Upon this scale, commercial sharpness has an air ofpatriotism; and I can imagine the man, so far from higgling over thescourge for a few Solomon islanders, prepared to oppress rival firms,overthrow inconvenient monarchs, and let loose the dogs of war. Whateverhe may decide, he will not want for backing. Every clerk will be eagerto be up and strike a blow; and most Germans in the group, whatever theymay babble of the firm over the walnuts and the wine, will rally roundthe national concern at the approach of difficulty. They are so few--I amashamed to give their number, it were to challenge contradiction--theyare so few, and the amount of national capital buried at their feet is sovast, that we must not wonder if they seem oppressed with greatness andthe sense of empire. Other whites take part in our brabbles, while temperholds out, with a certain schoolboy entertainment. In the Germans alone,no trace of humour is to be observed, and their solemnity is accompaniedby a touchiness often beyond belief. Patriotism flies in arms about ahen; and if you comment upon the colour of a Dutch umbrella, you havecast a stone against the German Emperor. I give one instance, typicalalthough extreme. One who had returned from Tutuila on the mail cuttercomplained of the vermin with which she is infested. He was suddenly andsharply brought to a stand. The ship of which he spoke, he was reminded,was a German ship.
John Caesar Godeffroy himself had never visited the islands; his sons andnephews came, indeed, but scarcely to reap laurels; and the mainspringand headpiece of this great concern, until death took him, was a certainremarkable man of the name of Theodor Weber. He was of an artful andcommanding character; in the smallest thing or the greatest, withoutfear or scruple; equally able to affect, equally ready to adopt, themost engaging politeness or the most imperious airs of domination. Itwas he who did most damage to rival traders; it was he who most harriedthe Samoans; and yet I never met any one, white or native, who did notrespect his memory. All felt it was a gallant battle, and the man agreat fighter; and now when he is dead, and the war seems to have goneagainst him, many can scarce remember, without a kind of regret, howmuch devotion and audacity have been spent in vain. His name stilllives in the songs of Samoa. One, that I have heard, tells
of _MisiUeba_ and a biscuit-box--the suggesting incident being long sinceforgotten. Another sings plaintively how all things, land and food andproperty, pass progressively, as by a law of nature, into the hands of_Misi Ueba_, and soon nothing will be left for Samoans. This is anepitaph the man would have enjoyed.
At one period of his career, Weber combined the offices of director ofthe firm and consul for the City of Hamburg. No question but he thendrove very hard. Germans admit that the combination was unfortunate; andit was a German who procured its overthrow. Captain Zembsch supersededhim with an imperial appointment, one still remembered in Samoa as "thegentleman who acted justly." There was no house to be found, and the newconsul must take up his quarters at first under the same roof withWeber. On several questions, in which the firm was vitally interested,Zembsch embraced the contrary opinion. Riding one day with an Englishmanin Vailele plantation, he was startled by a burst of screaming, leapedfrom the saddle, ran round a house, and found an overseer beating one ofthe thralls. He punished the overseer, and, being a kindly and perhapsnot a very diplomatic man, talked high of what he felt and what he mightconsider it his duty to forbid or to enforce. The firm began to lookaskance at such a consul; and worse was behind. A number of deeds beingbrought to the consulate for registration, Zembsch detected certaintransfers of land in which the date, the boundaries, the measure, andthe consideration were all blank. He refused them with an indignationwhich he does not seem to have been able to keep to himself; and,whether or not by his fault, some of these unfortunate documents becamepublic. It was plain that the relations between the two flanks of theGerman invasion, the diplomatic and the commercial, were strained tobursting. But Weber was a man ill to conquer. Zembsch was recalled; andfrom that time forth, whether through influence at home, or by thesolicitations of Weber on the spot, the German consulate has shownitself very apt to play the game of the German firm. That game, we maysay, was twofold,--the first part even praiseworthy, the second at leastnatural. On the one part, they desired an efficient nativeadministration, to open up the country and punish crime; they wished, onthe other, to extend their own provinces and to curtail the dealings oftheir rivals. In the first, they had the jealous and diffident sympathyof all whites; in the second, they had all whites banded togetheragainst them for their lives and livelihoods. It was thus a game of_Beggar my Neighbour_ between a large merchant and some small ones. Hadit so remained, it would still have been a cut-throat quarrel. But whenthe consulate appeared to be concerned, when the war-ships of the GermanEmpire were thought to fetch and carry for the firm, the rage of theindependent traders broke beyond restraint. And, largely from thenational touchiness and the intemperate speech of German clerks, thisscramble among dollar-hunters assumed the appearance of an inter-racialwar.
The firm, with the indomitable Weber at its head and the consulate atits back--there has been the chief enemy at Samoa. No English reader canfail to be reminded of John Company; and if the Germans appear to havebeen not so successful, we can only wonder that our own blunders andbrutalities were less severely punished. Even on the field of Samoa,though German faults and aggressions make up the burthen of my story,they have been nowise alone. Three nations were engaged in thisinfinitesimal affray, and not one appears with credit. They figure butas the three ruffians of the elder playwrights. The United States havethe cleanest hands, and even theirs are not immaculate. It was anambiguous business when a private American adventurer was landed withhis pieces of artillery from an American war-ship, and became primeminister to the king. It is true (even if he were ever really supported)that he was soon dropped and had soon sold himself for money to theGerman firm. I will leave it to the reader whether this trait dignifiesor not the wretched story. And the end of it spattered the credit alikeof England and the States, when this man (the premier of a friendlysovereign) was kidnapped and deported, on the requisition of an Americanconsul, by the captain of an English war-ship. I shall have to tell, asI proceed, of villages shelled on very trifling grounds by Germans; thelike has been done of late years, though in a better quarrel, byourselves of England. I shall have to tell how the Germans landed andshed blood at Fangalii; it was only in 1876 that we British had our ownmisconceived little massacre at Mulinuu. I shall have to tell how theGermans bludgeoned Malietoa with a sudden call for money; it wassomething of the suddenest that Sir Arthur Gordon himself, smartingunder a sensible public affront, made and enforced a somewhat similardemand.