MATAAFA AND THE GERMANS. A MAGNANIMOUS SPEECH.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 381, 3 July 1889, Page 5

MATAAFA AND THE GERMANS. A MAGNANIMOUS SPEECH.

Latest Samoan files to hand furnish us with fuller particulars of tho dinner or feasb given at Samoa by Mataafa, at which Admiral Kimberloy, the American Consul, and nearly all the prominent American and English residents were present. The (German officers had been invited, but would not attend, although they had been present in force at Taomsese's dinner aweek previously. The speech on behalf of Mataafa was delivered by the principal chief present, and hesaid :— -'-His Majesty has expressed great pleasure at seeing so many of the European residents of Samoa respond to his invitation. He looks upon itas showing your friendship and goodwill towards him and his people, also divining from the same cause your good behaviour, your good will, and your assistance to him should his Government be established, and also hopes that this goodwill will always exist between the European residents and his people. You all know the proverb, ' that a child must crawl before he can walk or run,' so with me and my people— we are but infants in the art of governing, and more so of doing or performing any part of fcbe functions of governing Europeans who are so used to the laws and the government of your own countries. His Majesty expresses great sorrow at the absence of his German friends. It pained him very much, as he was in hopes ot seemg 1 some of them mixing with us here to-day. ~ His Majesty says: I, my chiefs, and my people, do not bear them any ill will ; far horn it. I extend to them the hand of friendship as I do to you to-day. The past is past, and it was in one way an unfortunate affair, not of my seeking or wi3h, or desire. I say now, tor my chiefs and people, let the past be buried in oblivion, and from this time forward I hope and I pray we shall be friends. They (the Germans) and my chiefs and people will be friends. Not of the month, but friends of the true heart friendship and abiding to all time. This is a small group of islands with few inhabitants, but we have been sadly bowed down with grief — burned as it were, and nothing but dry bones left to certify that once we had life, and, as we are told in the Bible, that Jehovah breathed out the dry bones, they rose again full of life. So it is with us Samonns. We have been dead, and you of the United States, who have proved yourselves our true friends in time of trouble, ha\e put new life into us— breathed into us life and strength, so that we have risen from the dead, and all nations know us now to be a living people, with a hope and a future before us."