AFFAIRS AT SAMOA.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 202, 29 September 1888, Page 3

AFFAIRS AT SAMOA.

HEAVY FIGHTING TAKEN PLACE Sydney, September 27. The steamer Lubeck has arrived from Samoa, and brings news of heavy fighting having taken place between the adherents of Tamasese and Malietoa, the deposed king.

The Samoan correspondent of an Auckland journal writes :—The nominal tax the people have to pay the Government is nothing compared to the tines they are subjected to for the merest trifles The magistrate and police get the half of all the fines they impose, so you may imagine how lenient they are likely to be. Some of the laws a e most unjust in themselves and tyrannical in their app»ication. For example, the Government have passed and are carrying into effect a law' compelling cne part of a district who have paid all their own debts to pay the outstanding debts of the other part of the district. The enforcing of this monstrous law compelling one man to pay another man’s debts is, I believe, one of the principal causes of the present rebellion. This Government is equally as obnoxious to Tamasese’s own people as it is to the followers of Malietoa, and I have been told that large numbers have left it and joined the Other party; but whether their sense of wrongs suffered will be strong enough to outweigh the old party relationship, remains yet to be seen. The German form of governing here has been an entire failure; the people have no confidence in them, and consequently will not quietly submit to be governed by them. Their cowardly conduct towards Malietoa will be remembered against them for generations to come. They may engender a feeling of fear, but never one of respect and confidence. They have had their chance in Samoa, and so far as appearances go at present, have made awness of it. It is now high time some of the other countries interested should have a finger in the pie. Had it not been for the contemptible truckling of the B it sh Government the conference in Washington would have produced satisfactory results, and Malietoa, the O'dy name von can charm with in Somoa, would have been still here and working smoothly with the representatives of the other nations.