THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 1918. THE FATE OF SAMOA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16796, 12 March 1918, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 1918. THE FATE OF SAMOA.

When the agreement that gave Germany control of Samoa nineteen years ago was under renew in the British Parliament, Lord Salisbury remarked, " Samoa is not in itself a very important matter." It was a statement difficult to justify even then. Three great Powers had thought Samoa so well worth attention that for nearly twenty years they had quarrelled and made up and quarrelled again about it. Germany, Great Britain and the United States had each regarded this little group in the far Pacific as of sufficient importance to warrant naval expeditions. Although, in 1876, the plea for annexation by Britain that was presented to Sir Arthur Gordon by a deputation of Samoan chiefs was not granted, there had been ample proof of the group's value. Had not the fear of precipitating serious international trouble intervened, action in this way would have been taken by one or other of the bickering Governments. Lord Salisbury's remarkwas probably itself an example of the delicate diplomacy that then had way. But, while these nations quarrelled without coming to blows, one of them, awakening to the desirability of colonisation as a national programme, was meditating Samoa's secure possession. That one was Germany. In the 'sixties, the golden age of the island merchant, when the great Hamburg firm of Godefroy exploited unchallenged every considerable island group in the Pacific, there was laid in Samoa the foundation of German influence. Though that enterprise had fallen to pieces ten years later, there was left in Apia a practically independent German settlement; and, when Bismarck was forced by circumstances, for he was then by self-admission " no colony man," to give official sanction to a colonial policy, Samoa was the one place in all the world inviting his attention.

The German Government then subsidised a steamer to call every month, sent men-o'-war to lie at Apia, and generally tried to convince the world that the group was a German colony in all but name. As, in spite of the larger landed interests of the Germans, British residents outnumbered them by two to one, and their trade and missions and speech predominated, the fiction was flimsy. Besides the British claim, the United States coaling-station at Pago Pago, and the official recognition of the American currency as the standard, made the German pretensions idle. So the Berlin Treaty of 1880 attempted to reconcile the competing interests. The result was ridiculous. The natives were to accept a titular king whom the majority scorned, and the white population was to be governed by a German official instructed to act as adviser to a Samoan king not wanting his advice. The Consuls had limited powers, and a Swedish chief justice was given full authority to intervene in disputes. Disputes were inevitable. Robert Louis Stevenson's " Footnote to History" vividly and sympathetically narrates the troubles of the early years of the fatuous experiment. But it was not until ten years of this tangle had been endured that the success of a usurping native king compelled a fresh adjustment of rival claims. Germany got the best of the bargain then struck, being awarded the greater portion of the group. The Americans' right to a naval base at Pago Pago was ceded. Great Britain withdrew, and the native kingdom was abolished. In return for British withdrawal, Germany relinquished a shadowy claim to a harbour in Tonga, some fever-haunted islands in the Solomons, a few conditional rights in Zanzibar, and the Gold Coast hinterland. Leaving out the last item, it may.be fairly

asserted that the Germans gave us, in exchange for their free hand in Samoa, what was never theirs to give, and we could not legitimately take. It may be that a.weak wish to secure Germany's goodwill betrayed the British Government into a bargain bad for the world. Such a bargain must never be made again. Our seizure of Samoa early in the war may well be the basis of ultimate British possession of the group, and its relation to this country should be definite. Auckland, of all the cities of the Pacific, lies nearest to it : when German pretensions were first asserted, the dealings of Samoa's English traders were done chiefly with merchants of this place. It lies in the fairway from Australasia to the western ports of North America. A a naval base it should be secured for British defence. Its missionary interests are identified with those of fields administered by English organisations. The alternative of German possession is unthinkable. To allow it to fall again into the sovereign care of such a nation would be to doom its native people to a slavery more abject than even that recently endured, to havo its fertility exploited to swell the German's fighting fund for his next onslaught on the civilised world, and to provide him with a naval station that would menace the peaceful development of the' whole Pacific.