CARDINAL MORAN AND SAMOA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 6, 5 February 1903, Page 3

CARDINAL MORAN AND SAMOA.

HIS EMINENCE REPLIES TO HIS CRITICS.

Speaking at the opening of the Christian Brothers' new High School at Waverley on Sunday, January 18, his Eminence Cardinal Moran replied to his critics with reference to the Samoan question. The following is the Cardinal's speech on the occasion as reported in the ' Freeman's Journal.': — (L will ask jou to bear with me for a few minutes whilst 1 make a gentle indictment of one of the moaning newspapers of this city, which has thought well to mnke a violent attack upon me. The ' Daily Telegraph ' is the paper to which I refer. For some time past it has been pleased to pose as the favorite mouthpiece of anti-Cath-olic bigotry amongst us, and it gathers into its columns day by day the vilest calumnies, a thousand times re luted, w^hich may serve the purpose of hireling writers to fling mire and mud at the Catholic Church. As a rule 1 pay but little attention to such attacks. The good name of the Church is sure to survive them, the calumnies invariably recoil on their authors, who become themselves gradually unmasked, and one by one disappear from the scene. Misrepresentation. In its issue of the Bth of January the editor of the ' Daily Telegraph ' takes the cudgel into his own hands, and Reads the leading article with the attractive title ' The Cardinal and Samoa.' In ihis article he writes :—: — ' The statement originally made by his Eminence was that in the Samoan trouble of some years ago some of the Protestant missionaries at Samoa went so far as to use their influence with some of the commanders of British war-ships to get them to shell the Catholic Presbytery and church, where hundreds of old and infirm had taken refuge. He (the Cardinal) proceeded to say that the British guns were turned upon and shelled the church and presbytery with the knowledge that they were filled with these defenceless people, and, indeed, upon that account.' In the first sentence oi the passage which I have just read, my words are not quite accurately gi\en 1 expressly referred to a missionary agent, and not to the missionaries themselves, but for the present that is a matter of little moment. What I impeach is the second sentence, which 1 regard as a deliberate traxeslv oi mv words, imputing to me sentiments quite the re\eise oi those which 1 expressed l! we arc to belieM' the editor of the ' Daily Telegraph,' 1 accuse the officers in question of perpetrating the outrage suggested by the niission«ir\ agent. What 1 did say was precisely to the contiai\. that is, that they refused to perpetrate the wishcd-lor outrage. The Cardinal's Words. In the classic days of Imperial Rome it was a proverbial maxim that men who embarked on a career of lying ought to cultivate a good memory. The counterpait, perhaps, of such a maxim at the present day might be that editors bent on assailing the Catholic Church would do well to consult from time to time the files of thenown newspapers, thus to escape from the manifest and ludicrous contradictions to which they may otherwise )><■ exposed In the present instance J turn to the columns of the ' Daily Telegraph ' of June 26, 1899, and 1 find the following report of my words :—: — ' Some went so far as to use their influence with some of the commanders of the British warships to get them to shell the Catholic presbytery and church, where hundreds of old and infirm had taken refuge. Owing to the prudence of the officers no such outrage was perpetrated.' Thus whilst IL expressly stated that the British commander did not yield to the suggestion so foully made, and did not perpetrate the proposed outrage, and whilst I commended their prudence in adopting such a course, the editor would fain lead the public to believe that I imputed to the officers in question the weakness and the guilt of yielding to the wicked suggestion and of perpetrating' the desired outrage. I consider that I am more than justified in calling on the editor of the 'Daily Telegraph' to acknowledge that in his over-hurry to cast a pebble at the Church he was betrayed into an egregious error, and has made, in my regard, an offensive statement quite the re\ers>e of the truth Someone may ask why is it that 1 have taken so special an interest in The Samoan Question. Tt was for the reasons that the Samoans are justly regarded as the noblest and most intelligent native race of the South Pacific Islands. The following tribute was paid to them by Mr. Osbourne, In the 'New York Independent.' in 1899 ■— ' The Samoans are, without doubt, the finest race of half-ci\iliscd people in the world Light bronze in color, of magnificent physique, chivalrous, polite, and intelligent, they have compelled the admiration of every traveller, nor does a long residence among them dim the impression first made. They are no fair-weather friends, and it is in times of death, sickness, and sorrow that their virtues shine most brightly. Tt is then that one begins to find out their sterling worth If the white man has much to teach them, assuredly they have much to teach the white man. No sojournor among them, no one, I mean, who has learned their language and lived amone them, as I have done, can regard the Samoan people with any other feelings than those of respect and admiration. They are full of the fierce, noble pride of an unconquered people.

Before the late disastrous war, 90 per cent, of this brave race were desirous of being placed under the British protection. Since the sad military display and the outrages that accompanied it, all that leaning towards Great Britain has disappeared. The island of Tutuila, with the port of Pango Pango, which our mariners regard as the finest harbor in the Pacific, has now passed into American hands ; all the larger islands of the group have been annexed to Germany, and thus the whole Samoan group, the gem of the South Pacific, has been permanently withdrawn from the influence of the Australian Commonwealth. I have no intention to repeat what I have often stated regarding the Samoan question, but as we are treating of the matter it may be well to consider a few of the accusations which are constantly levelled against mo on this head T nm accused of imputing all the evil deeds and the calamities of the Samoan war to the British Admiralty and the officers who were engaged in it. Those who make such an accusation are unquestionably at fault. 'I have repeatedly laid the blame of the disgraceful and disastrous struggle at the door of the Protestant missionary agents, and I am convinced that it is on their shoulders the main share of the responsibility must ultimately rest. I do not, however, by this intend to exempt from all blame the other officials who were engaged in the shameful proceedings. The American press does not hesitate to impute The War and its Evil Results to the Chief Justice of Samoa, Mr. Chambers, and to Admiral Kaut/. The 'New York Independent ' gives expression to the general sentiment when it states that 'on the heads of these two the guilt must lie.' In a certain sense this may be quite true. It was Admiral Kaiitz who, as senior officer, assumed the command of the combined squadron of British and American warships, and gave the order for the bombardment. Mr. Chambers, who is described as a third-rate American lawyer, issued the legal, or rather the illegal, decree airainst Mataafa, on which the American Admiral considered it was his duty to act. However, in all this matter, Mr Chambers appears to have been a mere tool of the missionary agents. Mr. .John George Leigh, who closely examined into all the circumstances of the case in Samoa, as well as in the United States, gives it as his verdict that the Chief .Justice 'was a pliant adherent of the Protestant missionaries.' Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, the stop-son of Uobert Louis Stevenson, and Vice-Consul of the United States in Samoa, attests that Mr. Chambers took up his quarters for a considerable time in the London Mission House at Apia, and ' identified himself in e\ery way with the Protestant missionaries.' Mr. Osbourne aftain writes that ' the London Missionary Society cannot tolerate the idea of a .Roman Catholic King. Mr. Chambers is a man of the most narrow evangelical views, and is altogether in the hands of the London Missionary Society. Hence his decision in favor of Tanu, the rival of Mataafa.' This same authentic witness has repeatedly laid the responsibility of the war at the door of the missionaries. He also attests that their hostility to the Catholic native chief, Mataafa, knew no bounds, so much so that ' to his positive and certain knowledge,' they went so far as to devise a plot that that great chief would be invited to the American Consulate under a safe conduct, in order that ho might be there -seized -and ca> ried off as a prisoner. Another American correspondent writes that during the bombardment, when a shell was seen to fall in an enclosure where it was supposed some Catholics had taken shelter, a missionary agent who was standing by, could not conceal his exultation, and cried out, 'We have accounted for some of the rebels at all events.' It hapnened, however, that no Catholics were there at the time, and, fortunately, no lives were sacrificed. So far was I from imputing the evfls of the war to the individual officers who were engaged in it, that when Lieutenant Lonsdale and Ensign Monaghan were killed in the ill-advised attack on Vallele, I took occasion in the public discourse in Sydney to pass a high eulogy on those officers. I believe I was the only ecclesiastic of any denomination in Sydney who bestowed any words of praise upon them, and it was cheering to find that my feeble vpords of well-deserved eulogy brought consolation to many bereaved homesteads in the United States, as the letters addressed to me attest. Independent Testimony. I have already icferred to Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, the American Vice-Consul, who was for many years resident in Samoa Hp is a Protestant and an admirer of the London Missionary Society, and he refers to the pood it has accomplished, but 'granting all this,' he says, as regards his Samoan experience, ' I must confess to have seen in its ranks men as unscrupulous as any in the world, mon who, by mixiner in native politics, have done much to discredit the entire society.' Even Tanu, in who.se favor the whole sad proceedings were carried on, at the close of the war turned tail upon his former friends, and in a letter to the London ' Times ' made serious accusations against the London missionaries. I am further censured in that I condemned in the strongest terms the proceedings of the allies and their native auxiliaries and the 'Daily Telegraph' is supremely indignant because I compared those proceedings to the Armenian outrages. Tt is quite possible that I may have erred in this, but my error will be found to be quite the reverse of what the 'Daily Telegraph' pretends. I should probably have said that the Samoan proceedings were far worse than the Armenian outrages, for the reason that two great Powers were responsible for them, and they were perpetrated with the semblance of legality, in

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I the name of civilisation, and under the mask of justice. All this may be regarded as finally settled by the award of King Oscar of Sweden. What ca.n be stronger than bis final and authoritative decision that the action of the American and British warships in Samoa in April, 1899, was illegal and unwarranted, wanton, and cruelly wrong ? King Oscar's Award. A leading newspaper in New York, the 'Evening Post,' last month, when announcing the Royal award, has made the humiliating confession : — ' Our conduct was based on misconception, if not on fraud, in the interests oi a handful of unprincipled conspirators. Our course was without the slightest authority in law and morals.' And it cites with approval the statement of a ' wellinformed American resident of Samoa ' that it was 'one of the most cowardly and scandalous of wars.' Another American periodical declares that 'the whole wretched business was a mistake from the start,' and assigns the responsibility to 'Chambers and the miserable zealots who instigated him to an act of the rankest injustice.' Mr. Napier, in the ' New Zealand Herald ' of April 9, 1899, describes the burning of Sam o an villages as ' a wanton and unprovoked act having no precedent in recent times.' A correspondent in Washington published a letter received from Apia, which declared the war to be < a procedure of brutality contrary to all laws of humanity and civilisation. The ' Fortnight.lv Review ' characterised it as ' one of the most grievous wrongs ever perpetrated in the name of civilisation.' A letter published in the London ' Academy ' in June, 1899, attests that ' the war has been distinguished on the Anglo-American side by an inexplicable ruthlessness and brutality.' Mr. Lloyd Osbourne writes on April 20, 1899 : — ' We, English and Americans, are cruelly and brutally in the w.rong These bombardments of Samoa'n towns must be abhorrent to any civilised beings.' Mrs. Stevenson attests that the old people and the infirm and the children, being compelled to fly from their burning; villages, through the hardshins which they endured, ' died like flies.' Mr. Leigh, to whom I have already referred, regards with particular disgust the fact that the allies put arms into the hands of natives whom he styles 'the scourings of Savaii and Tutuila' He adds : — ' Of all the offences against justice, humanity, and civilisation which constituted the Samoau question of 1899, this proceeding seems to me to be the least excusable. At the villages of Vaiusu and Vnilele The Catholic churches were Plundered and desecrated in a most shameful manner. The altars were thrown down, the crucifixes were broken, and the sacred vestments were torn to tatters. Even the altarstones were desecrated and smashed to pieces, and the prayer-books were torn up and destroyed. As a specimen ol the evidence presented to the Royal arbitrator in connection with this destruction of property we may take the statement made by Naseli, the Protestant native pastor of Solo-Solo, confirmed as it is by the Protestant teacher Alieapo :—: — ' The. third time that Solo-Solo was bombarded all the children ran away into the bush, and another partysought shelter in a ca%e. More than 40 shots were fired. The landing pai ty came nearer, and then two machine guns and lirearms were discharged When the party landed they immediately began to burn the houses, and before long the whole village was destroyed except the teachers' houses. The Tanu people then bioke into the Catholic church, which had been already damn red by one of the shots, and destroyed everything m it. Two British officers stood just by the entrance while this was being done The only person in the houses while the firing was going on was a blind girl named Fomoa, and a shell passed through the house where she was.' The native Protestant pastor at Leulumoega also attests regarding the destruction of that township that 'the landing party took many things out of the houses and carried them on board the ship. Nearly every house between Faleusu and Leulumoega, was destroyed Shots weie fired at the Catholic church and at the priest's dwellnv house near by ' For the past 50 years it was a rule with the nati\es that in their tiibal wars the churches and the residences of the leligtpus teachers of cveiy denomination wei c lespected The Tanu chiefs, when interrogated after the war why they had deviated from this rule by destioving the Catholic (.lunches and the priests' residences, had no hesitation in replying ' Our white teacheis urged us to do so.' What I ha"*.e said will serve, I trust, to put the Samoan question in its true light. The award gi\en by the King of Sweden, ordering more than a million dollars to bo pan! by the allies in compensation for damages' inflicted by the bombardment, will go far to restore the confidence of the natives in European civilisation. It will be mv prayer that the horrors of warfare may henceforth be for ever banished from those beautiful islands, and that, through the /enl of our missionaries, it may be the privilege of the noble Samoa n race to enjoy in the fullest measure the blessings of the heritage of Christian truth.