This grudge was an ill gift to bring to Brandeis,who had trouble enough in front of him without.He was an alien,he was supported by the guns of alien warships,and he had come to do an alien's work,highly needful for Samoa,but essentially unpopular with all Samoans.The law to be enforced,causes of dispute between white and brown to be eliminated,taxes to be raised,a central power created,the country opened up,the native race taught industry:
all these were detestable to the natives,and to all of these he must set his hand.The more I learn of his brief term of rule,the more I learn to admire him,and to wish we had his like.
In the face of bitter native opposition,he got some roads accomplished.He set up beacons.The taxes he enforced with necessary vigour.By the 6th of January,Aua and Fangatonga,districts in Tutuila,having made a difficulty,Brandeis is down at the island in a schooner,with the ADLER at his heels,seizes the chief Maunga,fines the recalcitrant districts in three hundred dollars for expenses,and orders all to be in by April 20th,which if it is not,"not one thing will be done,"he proclaimed,"but war declared against you,and the principal chiefs taken to a distant island."He forbade mortgages of copra,a frequent source of trickery and quarrel;and to clear off those already contracted,passed a severe but salutary law.Each individual or family was first to pay off its own obligation;that settled,the free man was to pay for the indebted village,the free village for the indebted province,and one island for another.Samoa,he declared,should be free of debt within a year.Had he given it three years,and gone more gently,I believe it might have been accomplished.To make it the more possible,he sought to interdict the natives from buying cotton stuffs and to oblige them to dress (at least for the time)in their own tapa.He laid the beginnings of a royal territorial army.The first draft was in his hands drilling.But it was not so much on drill that he depended;it was his hope to kindle in these men an ESPRIT DE CORPS,which should weaken the old local jealousies and bonds,and found a central or national party in the islands.Looking far before,and with a wisdom beyond that of many merchants,he had condemned the single dependence placed on copra for the national livelihood.His recruits,even as they drilled,were taught to plant cacao.Each,his term of active service finished,should return to his own land and plant and cultivate a stipulated area.Thus,as the young men continued to pass through the army,habits of discipline and industry,a central sentiment,the principles of the new culture,and actual gardens of cacao,should be concurrently spread over the face of the islands.
Tamasese received,including his household expenses,1960dollars a year;Brandeis,2400.All such disproportions are regrettable,but this is not extreme:we have seen horses of a different colour since then.And the Tamaseseites,with true Samoan ostentation,offered to increase the salary of their white premier:an offer he had the wisdom and good feeling to refuse.A European chief of police received twelve hundred.There were eight head judges,one to each province,and appeal lay from the district judge to the provincial,thence to Mulinuu.From all salaries (I gather)a small monthly guarantee was withheld.The army was to cost from three to four thousand,Apia (many whites refusing to pay taxes since the suppression of the municipality)might cost three thousand more:Sir Becker's high feat of arms coming expensive (it will be noticed)even in money.The whole outlay was estimated at twenty-seven thousand;and the revenue forty thousand:a sum Samoa is well able to pay.
Such were the arrangements and some of the ideas of this strong,ardent,and sanguine man.Of criticisms upon his conduct,beyond the general consent that he was rather harsh and in too great a hurry,few are articulate.The native paper of complaints was particularly childish.Out of twenty-three counts,the first two refer to the private character of Brandeis and Tamasese.Three complain that Samoan officials were kept in the dark as to the finances;one,of the tapa law;one,of the direct appointment of chiefs by Tamasese-Brandeis,the sort of mistake into which Europeans in the South Seas fall so readily;one,of the enforced labour of chiefs;one,of the taxes;and one,of the roads.This Imay give in full from the very lame translation in the American white book."The roads that were made were called the Government Roads;they were six fathoms wide.Their making caused much damage to Samoa's lands and what was planted on it.The Samoans cried on account of their lands,which were taken high-handedly and abused.
They again cried on account of the loss of what they had planted,which was now thrown away in a high-handed way,without any regard being shown or question asked of the owner of the land,or any compensation offered for the damage done.This was different with foreigners'land;in their case permission was first asked to make the roads;the foreigners were paid for any destruction made."The sting of this count was,I fancy,in the last clause.No less than six articles complain of the administration of the law;and Ibelieve that was never satisfactory.Brandeis told me himself he was never yet satisfied with any native judge.And men say (and it seems to fit in well with his hasty and eager character)that he would legislate by word of mouth;sometimes forget what he had said;and,on the same question arising in another province,decide it perhaps otherwise.I gather,on the whole,our artillery captain was not great in law.Two articles refer to a matter Imust deal with more at length,and rather from the point of view of the white residents.
