第65章 LAUPEPA AND MATAAFA(7)

But their policy has another and a more awkward side.About the time of the secession to Malie,many ugly things were said;I will not repeat that which I hope and believe the speakers did not wholly mean;let it suffice that,if rumour carried to Mataafa the language I have heard used in my own house and before my own native servants,he would be highly justified in keeping clear of Apia and the whites.One gentleman whose opinion I respect,and am so bold as to hope I may in some points modify,will understand the allusion and appreciate my reserve.About the same time there occurred an incident,upon which I must be more particular.A was a gentleman who had long been an intimate of Mataafa's,and had recently (upon account,indeed,of the secession to Malie)more or less wholly broken off relations.To him came one whom I shall call B with a dastardly proposition.It may have been B's own,in which case he were the more unpardonable;but from the closeness of his intercourse with the chief justice,as well as from the terms used in the interview,men judged otherwise.It was proposed that A should simulate a renewal of the friendship,decoy Mataafa to a suitable place,and have him there arrested.What should follow in those days of violent speech was at the least disputable;and the proposal was of course refused."You do not understand,"was the base rejoinder."YOU will have no discredit.The Germans are to take the blame of the arrest."Of course,upon the testimony of a gentleman so depraved,it were unfair to hang a dog;and both the Germans and the chief justice must be held innocent.But the chief justice has shown that he can himself be led,by his animosity against Mataafa,into questionable acts.Certain natives of Malie were accused of stealing pigs;the chief justice summoned them through Mataafa;several were sent,and along with them a written promise that,if others were required,these also should be forthcoming upon requisition.Such as came were duly tried and acquitted;and Mataafa's offer was communicated to the chief justice,who made a formal answer,and the same day (in pursuance of his constant design to have Malie attacked by war-ships)reported to one of the consuls that his warrant would not run in the country and that certain of the accused had been withheld.At least,this is not fair dealing;and the next instance I have to give is possibly worse.For one blunder the chief justice is only so far responsible,in that he was not present where it seems he should have been,when it was made.He had nothing to do with the silly proscription of the Mataafas;he has always disliked the measure;and it occurred to him at last that he might get rid of this dangerous absurdity and at the same time reap a further advantage.Let Mataafa leave Malie for any other district in Samoa;it should be construed as an act of submission and the confiscation and proscription instantly recalled.This was certainly well devised;the government escaped from their own false position,and by the same stroke lowered the prestige of their adversaries.But unhappily the chief justice did not put all his eggs in one basket.Concurrently with these negotiations he began again to move the captain of one of the war-ships to shell the rebel village;the captain,conceiving the extremity wholly unjustified,not only refused these instances,but more or less publicly complained of their being made;the matter came to the knowledge of the white resident who was at that time playing the part of intermediary with Malie;and he,in natural anger and disgust,withdrew from the negotiation.These duplicities,always deplorable when discovered,are never more fatal than with men imperfectly civilised.Almost incapable of truth themselves,they cherish a particular score of the same fault in whites.And Mataafa is besides an exceptional native.I would scarce dare say of any Samoan that he is truthful,though I seem to have encountered the phenomenon;but I must say of Mataafa that he seems distinctly and consistently averse to lying.

For the affair of the Manono prisoners,the chief justice is only again in so far answerable as he was at the moment absent from the seat of his duties;and the blame falls on Baron Senfft von Pilsach,president of the municipal council.There were in Manono certain dissidents,loyal to Laupepa.Being Manono people,Idaresay they were very annoying to their neighbours;the majority,as they belonged to the same island,were the more impatient;and one fine day fell upon and destroyed the houses and harvests of the dissidents "according to the laws and customs of Samoa."The president went down to the unruly island in a war-ship and was landed alone upon the beach.To one so much a stranger to the mansuetude of Polynesians,this must have seemed an act of desperation;and the baron's gallantry met with a deserved success.