The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-08-28
THE PACIFIC
Commercials
SATURDAY. AUGUST =.
Sancho Pauza In Samoa.

Since CerTantes invented the Island Of Barataria
and set SancbO PanZa to governing it, there has
been nothing in fact or fiction TO compare with
the grotesque farce Of the Steinberger Cabinet in
the Samoan Islands. We are Indebted to q
simple minded correspondent Of the Herald for
full details Of the ceremonies which attended the
establishment Of the Samoan monarchy and
the installation ot that modest political missionary
Steinberger a. the Prime Minister a for life"
Tho ReToId has 4 sufficient bump of r~everence for
all news furnished TO il by it, own correspondents,
and rarely fails 10 magnify its wares. But Stein
berger, with his moral and political maxims and
his treatise on diplomacy addressed to a mob of
half-naked sayages, smeared with cocOanut oil, Is
more than even the Herald can stomach. 1t init
mates more fOrcIbly than politely that If President
Grant was. not tipsY when he sent Steinberger 70
the Samoan Islands, SteinbeTgcr must have been
demented when he got there.
Nothing, indeed, could be more ludicrous than
the whole story which the Her0id's correspondent
recites to US, unless indeed it be the blinking
gravity with which he recites it. Shah Baham
in the play sterniy exclaims to his rather quizzical
~sultana, You will not persuade me that a
Shah can be n fool The Herald correspondent
in the Samoan Islands evidently found it impos-
sible to persuade himself that an expedition
patronized by President Grant, and carried on
in q United States mln-of-war, could really be rs
ridiculous as this expedition seemed to be, even
though Destiny 3 threw n light - on the matter
for him, as the children say, By causing Steinber-
vi u OlEh AAc 0kdAC-lOuulAJ Oa ~ nkEl " n IIl1s
But, remarks the New York World, there is a
serious side to this fare, and n very serious side
too. Steinberger was not sent TO and fro between
Washington and the Samoan Islands for nothing.
The man has had the use of an American man-of-
war, fully equipped, for many months and an
American man-of-war in commission is q costly
luxury. 1t appears, too, that on his return to
the islands Steinberger took out with him as
g presents TO the new government, - or in other
words to himself, cannon, rifles and an assorted
collection Of munitions Of war. These belonged,
all of them to Steinberger and by what warrant
were they given to him?
Who authorized the Executive Of the United
States to order a naval officer of the United States
to salute Steinberger's flag of - seven stripes with
n single silver star in a field Of blue?' Who put
a naval officer Of the United States at the service
of Steinberger, to be sent by him as { an envoy
from the Samoan Kingdom y to Honolulu, there
to negotiate treaties with the King of the Sand
wich Islands? These questions touch somewhat
beyond the scope Of a legitimate first Of April
joke. We do not care just now to look into the
gossip which reaches us from Washington about
an alleged intimacy of Steinberger with President
Grant going back to 4 period in the life of the
latter parsonage over which his best friends are
most anxious to draw the veil of a charitable
oblivion. But from the Hera7d's correspondence
it appears clearly that there exists a land company
in San Francisco which had got itself discredit-
ably and unproftably involved in speculations in
the Samoan Islands before Steinberger was sent
there originally. Can this be the land company
with which one of the Presidents brothers-in-
law, Dent of San Francisco, has been said to be
concerned? The preposterous comedy of Stein
berger in Samoa may possibly prove in the end a
trlfie too scurvy to provoke an honest laugh. But
whatever its origin and its upshot, the conduct
Of the American Government throughout this
whole affair demands, and when Congress meets
it will unquestionably receive, a most thorough
inquest and overhauling. There are a good many
EurOOeanS in the Samoan Islands Of different
nationalities, and if we have been committed, as
it certainly appears that we have been COMMITTEES
by the Executive at Washington to a practical
Endorsement and protectorate Of Steinberger in
his new Barataria, it is abundantly possible that
we may find ourselves involved, even before Con-
gress meets, in difficulties which we can neither
solve nor leave unsolved with honor and with
selfrespect.-ETQmineT.