The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1888-10-27
THE SAMOAN QUESTION.
Light on a Dark SUFFICIENTLY! Great
Britain Surrendered Her Influence.


Britain Surrendered Her Influence.
The Fiji Times of Aug. 25th publishes
a speech of Mr. w. A. Macarthur, mem
Der of the British Parliament, to his con-
stituents in Mevagissey, Cornwall. This
gentleman had visited Australia and
New Zealand last year, where he found
the people much exercised about the de-
velopments in Samoa, and on his return
he had put long string of questions to
the Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
which were not answered for a long time,
and Mr.. Macarthur is reported as to the
answers as follows:
And the fact was this-that towards
the end of 1886 or the beginning of 1887,
when we were in trouble in Egypt, and
it was supposed that our relations with
some of the European Powers were not
on such a good footing as they might
have been, the English government alb
solutely resigned their rights in Samoa
to the German government. They did
this not only without informing the
United States and the Australian col
Onies until months later, but absolutely
without informing their own consul at
Samoa. So that this unhappy man
whose duty it was to carry out the views
of the English government, and who
protested against what he regarded as a
violation of international law, found him
self when finally he got his information
in September of last year, nine months
behind the fair, for the English gov
eminent had agreed to the action of the
hofO no
instructions whatever. {" Shame!")
The colonies of Australia and New Zea-
land had always looked upon 1t as an alb
solute necessity that English influence
should be paramount in that part of the
Pacific. And it should be. 1t was the
English who had made it safe for any
foreign nation to go into the Pacific at
all. It was our ships and our mission
aries who had partially civilized those
islands, and made it possible for
Europeans to engage IN any trade
with the natives. We were prac-
tically the only nation which had
treated the natives with anything
like fair play, and we there
fore had right to claim the domination
of the Pacific, or at any rate, of that part
of it. But here was the whole of this
great inheritance-for it was a great in
observation-disclosures, hear, )-handed over
bodily by Conservative Government at
a time when we were engaged in SQUAD
bleS in which the mass of Englishmen
took no particular interest, simply to
keep themselves square with those eX-
traordinary European alliances into
which Tory and sometimes Liberal Gov |
ernments were continually dragging the |
country. (Hear, hear. He regarded |
this a most mOnstrous case. Nothing |
II 4 Al,
of the Government. They had given up |
the natives of these islands to rule |
which they detested; they had seen a |
king, whom they had vowed to protect, !
seized and transported to distance of |
1000 miles without word of protest. |
("Shame" )-and in return they had alb |
solutely nothing, because all they ever |
got was promise that they should not |
be interfered with in Egypt, and the |
Egyptian campaign had gained no
thing for England except the privilege |
of paying an enormous bill and leaving |
the country at the earliest possible mo- I
ment. daughter and applause). He |
hoped to have an opportunity of going |
into this question in Parliament the first |
day on which the House met after the |
recess, when the foreign estimates would |
come on for discussion; and he could |
promise them that he should have a
great deal to say about this Samoan an
nexation, and on behalf of the king of |
this unhappy nation, who had as much
right to our keeping faith with him as
the proudest European sovereign. Gap |
plausel.
In the earlier part of his speech Mr..
Macarthur, describing the change of last
year in the Samoan situation, said "that
the whole direction of Samoan affairs
was now in the hands of Germany, and
that in face of the fact that only twelve
or eighteen months ago fifty-four out of
the ffty-seven native chiefs petitioned
England to annex the islands on the
ground that they were afraid of the Ger
mans, and protested against German
annexation" When Mr.. Sewall, Amer
lean Consul in Samoa, passed through
Honolulu two months ago, he strenuously
denied that the British Government, anv
more than that of the United States, had
ever surrendered exclusive control of
Samoan affairs to Germany as was re-
ported in American papers. This showed
that the secret of the British backdown
had not been out when'he left Samoa, as
until his departure he had been working
in CONCERT with the British Consul, both |
of them withholding recognition of the
Tamasese government.