The Home News on Samoan Affairs.

Samoa Times and South Sea Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 30, 11 May 1889, Page 3

The Home News on Samoan Affairs.

Mr. 11. L. Stevenson's letter to tlio Timet from the Hawaiian Islands on the affairs of Samoa, though containing little that is new. has created considerable interest. It is not pleasant reading f«r th- Germans, and will confirm Prince Bismarck's hostility to tho doings <>f German colonists. The notion of l>r. Knappe has been highhanded and unpardonable. Ho has repudiated engagements equally with Samoa and with c.nglaiid and America, and has worked solely to secure the annexation of the island by thr home authorities. Mr. Stivonson says: " 1 have had through my hands a file of consular proclamations, the most singular reading—a state of war declared, all T>th<*r authority hut that of the German representative suspended, punishment (and the punishment of death in particular) liberally threatened It is enough to make a man nth his eyes when ho rendd Colonel de Coetlogon's protest and the highhanded rejoinder posted alongside of it the next day hy Dr. Knappe. Who is Dr. Knappe to thus make peace and war, deal in life and death, ami close with a buffet the month of English Consuls? By what process known to diplomacy has he risen from his one-sixth part of municip.il authority to ho the Bismurck of a Polynesian island ? And what spell has been cast on the Cabinets of Washington and St. James's, that Mr. Blacklock should ha»*o been so long left unsupported, and that Colonel do Coctloeon must bow his h-iol under a public buffet ?" Obviously tho disavowal of Dr. Knappe on tho part of Prince Bismarck is not enough, nnd much stronger measures ought to have been taken by the English and American Governments to bring him to reason