THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1889.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9308, 11 March 1889, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1889.

The. sensational ne*., respect i active hostilities at Samoa ha»> come to us ; from a long way about. I'i «4 au the capital of Silesia, from which we have , been informed that the German varship Olga has torpedoed and sunk a-. t | American man-of-war in Samoa, is in • the remotest and most inland district ' of the German Empire, in fact in an aigle of the empire projecting between , .Russian Poland and Austria, and is one of the last places to which we should look for the latest intelligence of what 1 is transpiring at tho antipodes. So pitlpably absurd is the statement that it is deserving of no notice but for tin singular fact that the sensational item should have been telegraphed to us all the way from Berlin; and that it has obtained credence more or lesa on the other side of the world is apparent from the fact that we have received a cable message from a San Francisco journal, asking for all particulars about the fighting at Samoa. The announcement has evidently created some excitement in the States, where the war sentiment had been _ springing up, and a desire to chastise Germany had been growing apace ; and it is to be hoped that in the excitement no overt act of hostility may take place in diplomatic circles until more reliable information is to hand. Our American contemporary j applies to Auckland for further particulars, rightly judging this to be the most likely place to have the earliest ,and the latest information on the subject, but perhaps elucidation of the, matter might have been more quickly obtained by inquiry from the Breslau journal as to the sources of its information.

It will be observed that the date of our telegram is the eighth instant, and assuming that the Breslau newspaper had electrified Europe and America on the previous day, its news dated onlv eight days later than the day of the calling of the Alameda at Tutuila, in the Samoan Islands, and eleven days later than the despatch of his letter to us by our own correspondent at Apia, at which time there wo absolute quietude existing between the naval forces in Samoan waters. In fact convivialities were the order of the day, the British commander giving umbrage to his fallow - subjects in the islands through his feasting the officers of the flee+s in the circumstances. Now, as the swift steaming Alameda requires some eighteen days to make the passage between Samoa and San Francisco, it is obvious that the enterprising Breslau journal has not had its information by any possible means of communication with San Francisco, and it is perfectly known to us that no such information reached this colony or Australia, the Alameda being the very latest means of communication between the group and any point of contact with the telegraph system of the world. In such circumstances, either the German paper has

: been hoaxed, or it has fought to enliven the monotony of existence in Silesia by getting up a sensation which has given to the Silesian Times a distinction and a world-wide fame which probably it might never have otherwise obtained. It is the Conservative daily journal published in the capital of Silesia, and with the respectable circulation of between seventeen and eighteen thousand copies ; but it is to be feared that the staid gravity of its Conservative character will have been sadly compromised by this startling attempt to spring a surprise on its contemporaries. hat the statement is wholly incorrect, there can be 110 possibility of doubt, for the sheer impossibility of news having reached Europe of any date later than that at which peace was certainly reigning between the fleets; but apart from this, however menacing affairs may have appeared at an earlier date, they had assumed a character that gave no warrant for the expectation that such a collision was probable. It is true that the proclamation of martial law had not been revoked, and the forces of Mataafa still maintained a defensive and even defiant attitude ; but a truce had been tacitly established, and practically it was understood that affairs should remain in statu quo pending the proceedings of the Conference of American, British, and German representatives at Berlin. The withdrawal of the German resident with Tamasese, Herr Brandeis, has sufficiently indicated to the Islanders the abandonment by the German authorities of the intention of maintaining Tamasese in his usurped power; and the friendly overtures pressed by th<* German Consul' on Mataafa, confirms the evidence of the departure from a policy of fqr;qe and violence. Everything, indeed, seems to indicate that the trouble at Samoa is practically at an end, and that at the least a trial of strength has given place to a conflict of diplomacy. But the rumour of the German paper, idle though it be, is of an event that might at any moment have occurred during the lately strained relations at the islands ; and the imminent risk there was of very grave complications being precipitated by the sudden action of hot-headed men, ought to be a warning to the rulers of men among these great Powers, to prevent affairs drifting into a condition in which such things are possible. It is not always easy, even in private life, for men to stand by and see a wanton act of outrage or cruelty inflicted without being tempted to interpose ; and if in any peculiarly wanton or unprovoked attack on the Samoans by the German forces, the officers of the American warship had taken upon them the responsibility of interposing, humanity would have condoned the intrusion, and in every probability the American nation would in the circumstances have done the same. This risk has been imminent duiing all the time that German officers were either acting on their own responsibility, or, acting on original instructions, conveyed to them before the German Government had realised the effect their high-handed conduct was calculated to produce in the United States. Happily the change of policy has come before it was too late, for an unfortunate incident might during months past have produced, with variations, some such untoward incident as that which has apparently been evolved by the Schlesische Zeitung out of tlie depths of its own moral consciousness.