and ability; in public, of an excellent presence--in private, of
a most engaging cordiality. But there was one point, I scarce know
whether to say of his character or policy, which immediately and
disastrously affected public feeling in the islands. He had an aversion,
part judicial, part perhaps constitutional, to haste; and he announced
that, until he should have well satisfied his own mind, he should do
nothing; that he would rather delay all than do aught amiss. It was
impossible to hear this without academical approval; impossible to hear
it without practical alarm. The natives desired to see activity; they
desired to see many fair speeches taken on a body of deeds and works of
benefit. Fired by the event of the war, filled with impossible hopes,
they might have welcomed in that hour a ruler of the stamp of Brandeis,
breathing hurry, perhaps dealing blows. And the chief justice,
unconscious of the fleeting opportunity, ripened his opinions
deliberately in Mulinuu; and had been already the better part of half a
year in the islands before he went through the form of opening his court.
The curtain had risen; there was no play. A reaction, a chill sense of
disappointment, passed about the island; and intrigue, one moment
suspended, was resumed.

In the Berlin Act, the three Powers recognise, on the threshold, "the
independence of the Samoan government, and the free right of the natives
to elect their chief or king and choose their form of government." True,
the text continues that, "in view of the difficulties that surround an
election in the present disordered condition of the government," Malietoa
Laupepa shall be recognised as king, "unless the three Powers shall by
common accord otherwise declare." But perhaps few natives have followed
it so far, and even those who have, were possibly all cast abroad again
by the next clause: "and his successor shall be duly elected according to
the laws and customs of Samoa." The right to elect, freely given in one
sentence, was suspended in the next, and a line or so further on appeared
to be reconveyed by a side-wind. The reason offered for suspension was
ludicrously false; in May 1889, when Sir Edward Malet moved the matter in
the conference, the election of Mataafa was not only certain to have been
peaceful, it could not have been opposed; and behind the English puppet
it was easy to suspect the hand of Germany. No one is more swift to
smell trickery than a Samoan;