ewer subjects, but the like independence and an equal royalty. Now
Mataafa, even if all debatable points were decided against him, is still
Tuiatua, and as such, on this hypothesis, a sovereign prince. In the
second place, the draughtsmen of the Act, waxing exceeding bold,
employed the word "election," and implicitly justified all precedented
steps towards the kingship according with the "customs of Samoa." I am
not asking what was intended by the gentlemen who sat and debated very
benignly and, on the whole, wisely in Berlin; I am asking what will be
understood by a Samoan studying their literary work, the Berlin Act; I
am asking what is the result of taking a word out of one state of
society, and applying it to another, of which the writers know less than
nothing, and no European knows much. Several interpreters and several
days were employed last September in the fruitless attempt to convey to
the mind of Laupepa the sense of the word "resignation." What can a
Samoan gather from the words, _election? election of a king? election of
a king according to the laws and customs of Samoa_? What are the
electoral measures, what is the method of canvassing, likely to be
employed by two, three, four, or five, more or less absolute
princelings, eager to evince each other? And who is to distinguish such
a process from the state of war? In such international--or, I should
say, interparochial--differences, the nearest we can come towards
understanding is to appreciate the cloud of ambiguity in which all
parties grope--

"Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying."

Now, in one part of Mataafa's behaviour his purpose is beyond mistake.
Towards the provisions of the Berlin Act, his desire to be formally
obedient is manifest. The Act imposed the tax. He has paid his taxes,
although he thus contributes to the ways and means of his immediate
rival. The Act decreed the supreme court, and he sends his partisans to
be tried at Mulinuu, although he thus places them (as I shall have
occasion to show) in a position far from wholly safe. From this literal
conformity, in matters regulated, to the terms of the Berlin
plenipotentiaries, we may plausibly infer, in regard to the rest, a no
less exact observance of the famous and obscure "laws and customs of
Samoa."

But though it may be possible to attain, in the study, to some such
adumbration of an understanding, it were plainly unfair to expect it of
officials in the hu