authority acquired in the contest remains with the encroachers. On their
side they have no rights, but a tradition of victory, the ear of the
Governments at home, and the _vis viva_ of the war-ships. For the poor
treaty officials, what have they but rights very obscurely expressed and
very weakly defended by their predecessors? Thus it comes about that
people who are scarcely mentioned in the text of the treaty are, to all
intents and purposes, our only rulers.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

IX

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES"

_Vailima, Samoa, May_ 22, 1894.

Sir,--I told you in my last that the Consuls had tinkered up a treaty of
peace with the rebels of Aana. A month has gone by, and I would not
weary readers your with a story so intricate and purposeless. The
Consuls seem to have gone backward and forward, to and fro. To periods
of agitated activity, comparable to that of three ants about a broken
nest, there succeeded seasons in which they rested from their labours
and ruefully considered the result. I believe I am not overstating the
case when I say that this treaty was at least twice rehandled, and the
date of submission changed, in the interval. And yesterday at length we
beheld the first-fruits of the Consular diplomacy. A boat came in from
Aana bearing the promised fifty stand of arms--in other words, a talking
man, a young chief, and some boatmen in charge of a boat-load of broken
ironmongery. The Government (well advised for once) had placed the
Embassy under an escort of German blue-jackets, or I think it must have
gone ill with the Ambassadors.

So much for Aana and the treaty. With Atua, the other disaffected
province, we have been and are on the brink of war. The woods have been
patrolled, the army sent to the front, blood has been shed. It consists
with my knowledge that the loyalist troops marched against the enemy
under a hallucination. One and all believed, a majority of them still
believe, that the war-ships were to follow and assist them. Who told
them so? If I am to credit the rumours of the natives, as well as the
gossip of official circles, a promise had been given to this effect by
the Consuls, or at least by one of the Consuls. And when I say that a
promise had been given, I mean that it had been sold. I mean that the
natives had to buy it by submissions.

Let me take an example of these submissions. The native Government
increased the salary of Mr. Gurr, the natives' advocat