GERMANY AND SAMOA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10968, 24 January 1899, Page 4

GERMANY AND SAMOA.

m Germany ia apparently disposed to net fairly ; n regard to Samoa. The German Ambassador at Washington has assured Colonel Hay, Secretary of State, that if the action attributed to the German Consul at Apia, HenRose, and the President of the Council, Dr. Raffel, is confirmed, it will be disavowed, and the offenders punished. This is as it should be. But it will be difficult to undo the mischief which has been accomplished. If the officers of the three Treaty Powers had from the first acted together and made it plain to the natives that they intended to net together in support of the Chief Justice, the probability is that there would have been no outbreak, and that the decision as to the kingship would have been acquiesced in by all the tribes. Now Mataafa has been declared king, and his followers have full possession of Samoa, and it iB scarcely to be expected that they will peacefully give up everything and allow Mnlietoa to be installed. The German press adopt a moderate tone, and suggests that the British and American Ambassadors at Berlin, with the German Minister for Foreign Affaire, should be em-1 powered to settle the dispute. But it can scarcely be settled in this offhand way. An earnest attempt ought to be made to establish a state of things which will be a security against a recurrence i c what has taken place. A tripartite system of control iB fore- 1 doomed to failure, and it would be absurd to set up again what has just broken down.