The surrender of Samoa to Germany was a bitter pill to New Zealand, and the Imperialist Premier, the late "Dick" Seddon, expressed himself forcibly on the subject.
In reply to the letter from the Imperial Colonial Secretary announcing British withdrawal from Samoa, Seddon, who had looked to the realisation of the dream of a federation of the Pacific Islands under the hegemony of New Zealand, wrote:
"This surrender of Samoa will in future be a source of anxiety and entail expense on Great Britain and the Colonies in preparing for and providing against eventualities. However, now that it has been done, it is necessary that immediately opportune steps should be taken to put the islands admitted to be British on a satisfactory footing. Some definite action of a forward character is required in the Pacific at the earliest opportune moment, for the surrender of Samoa has disheartened the natives in the islands, disappointed the people of Australasia, and lowered the prestige of Great Britain in this part of the world."
Samoa
The thought of South Sea Islands conjures up pictures of treasure-trove and pearls, of joy-rides on turtle back, of dusky beauties with scarlet hybiscus blooms in their hair, and of fat, naked brown babies rolling on the sun-kissed sands.
Readers of Robert Louis Stevenson will know Samoa and the Samoans as he knew them, and will picture the life on the islands he loved—gentle and entrancing—and breathe the soft atmosphere undisturbed save by the gurgle of rivulets flinging spray, on which small rainbows dance, over lichen-covered boulders flanked by feathery tree ferns.
Samoa, Upolu, Fanuatapu—the very sound of the names has in it the cadence of the murmur of the surf over coral reefs and silver sands, or the whisper of perfume-laden breezes in tall palms fringing blue lagoons.
That is the more aesthetic conception; but there is a sordid view open to the imagination in blood-spattered, headless corpses, victims of tribal fights, or "the white men on the beach," in turn victims of unbridled passions and "square-face" gin.
The beachcombers of the South Seas have enriched the slang of our language with the expression "on the beach," or "on the pebbly," to denote a hopeless financial condition; but as a class these pyjama-clad, unlaced-booted gentry represent the limit of degradation—the bottom of the depths.
To natives all white men are chiefs, but "surely these are not great chiefs?" asked one of the Samoan islanders, indicating the whites who dream the idle hours away on the sandy beach of Samoa.