Frank asked why it was that so many men engaged in commerce were opposed to the missionaries.
"Principally for the reason," was the reply, "that the missionaries defend the natives against the dishonesty of certain classes of traders, and thus reduce their profits. There are honest men and dishonest ones engaged in commerce in Polynesia, just as there are elsewhere. When you hear a Polynesian merchant denouncing the missionaries in vehement terms, you may fairly conclude that the missionaries have stood in his way when he was endeavoring to defraud the natives. He is a man not to be trusted, at least that is a fair inference, though in this as in everything else he may be an exception.
NO RESPECT FOR MISSIONARIES.
"Let me give you an illustration of this," continued the Doctor. "Some years ago I heard a retired sea-captain in New York denouncing the missionaries, and declaring that they had ruined the trade of the South Pacific. It was at a dinner-party, and before the end of the evening the old captain became quite communicative about the ways of commerce with Polynesia and the Malay Archipelago. Among other things he told how they traded with the natives in his younger days. 'We used,' said he, 'to take our old-fashioned balance scales on shore with our fifty-six pound and smaller weights with handles to them. We set up the scales, and then the natives brought forward some bags whose exact weight they knew. These bags were used for testing our weights, to see that they were correct. Of course they were all right; the testing and setting up the scales took the best part of the afternoon, and then we knocked off for the day.
"We left the scales on shore where they had been set up, but took the weights back to the ship "for safety." They were hollow, and the handles were screwed in; during the night we unscrewed the handles, filled the hollow space with lead, and then screwed the handles back again so neatly that nobody would ever discover anything. In this way we managed to get the cargo to average 160 to 170 pounds a picul (133 pounds); and in those days a supercargo or captain who couldn't make a cargo come up to at least 150 pounds a picul wasn't wanted another voyage by the owners. Trade went on that way until the missionaries found out all about this and other tricks, and told the natives. They never would have suspected anything if it hadn't been for the missionaries.'
"This man," continued the Doctor, "was no worse than many others in the same line of business; and if all stories are true, he was no worse than many of our forefathers, who made money by their dealings with the savages in the early days of American colonization. The belief that it is no sin to cheat the infidel and heathen is not by any means confined to the followers of Mohammed. It is easy to understand why he was opposed to the missionary labors in the South Seas, as they certainly tended, in his estimation, to the ruin of commerce."
One of the youths asked if this opposition to the Christianizing of the heathen was prevalent among the large mercantile houses, as well as among the small and independent traders.