TONGA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 21, 11 September 1914, Page 4

TONGA.

"The King of Tonga gave an assurance of neutrality" is a paragraph from the) account of H.M.S. Psyche's return voyage from Samoa to Auckland. This policy announcement by the brown monarch of the Friendlies, which should he comforting to the numerous German trading firms in the Tonga archipelago, is an instance of the repetitions of history. There is a story told (says the Lyttelton Times) throughout the South Seas of how old King George Tubou the First, the father of the present King of Tonga, made a similar announcement during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. Then. as now, there were German firms doing business in the Friendly Islands, and there was a French squadron cruising in the Pacific, of which the unprotected sons of the Fatherland stood in some tear when the news came of the outbreak of Avar. The King, being an old warrior, was intensely interested in the news, and asked Ins European adviser, a Britisher, what he should do aboui it, seeing that he had Prussian subjects in his domains. The result was that a solemn assurance was publislu-o stating that his Majesty would observe perfect neutrality as between the combatants in the war. The story, with a variety of picturesque embellishments, became the joke of the South Seas, but old George- Tubou could never quite see the homour of it. To him the Kingdom of Tonga was the biggest thing in creation.