THE WESTBROOK PAPERS*

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 5, Issue 2, 1 October 1972, Page 18

THE WESTBROOK PAPERS*

Doug Munro

I never had the intention of settling down in the islands. I expected to return to England to marry a cousin who had been selected for me. But you must realise I was young when I first arrived in the islands —about half your age —and there were many temptations. 1 george westbrook I like him [Westbrook] best when he doesn’t talk politics. But when he spins a tale of his early island life, he’s good. It is a pity in a way he did not make the trip to London earlier in life, but the odds were against him—he seems fated to live his life near coral reefs. 2 w. tarr When George Westbrook returned to Samoa from Auckland in May 1933 as a passenger on the Mariposa he did so with mixed feelings. He had arrived in New Zealand in October of the previous year intent upon seeing a long cherished dream materialise. For over five years, his prime personal ambition had been a settlement of the turmoil in Samoa by means of a Round Table Conference or some other ‘impartial commission’. He aspired to go down in history as the man who paved the way in terminating ‘the present misunderstanding’ ‘. . . in an amicable manner without loss of prestige to either side’. 3 Instead it was impressed on him shortly after arriving that his hopes and efforts had been wasted. The news came to him as a bitter disappointment and he never ceased to regret this failure. On the other hand, Westbrook felt he had something to look forward to. He had received, whilst in Auckland, what he took to be ‘a splendid offer’ from the American writer, Julian Dana, which he thought would end his long search for a publisher for his projected books of reminiscences.

Sharing a cabin with Westbrook on the Mariposa was E. W. Gurr, returning to Samoa as his five-year term of exile had expired. Ihe two old men were friends and political allies who had lived in Samoa for many years. Gurr, however, had nothing to look forward to as he was stricken with pernicious anaemia. Westbrook, instead of enjoying the company of a friend on the voyage, had constantly to nurse Gurr who was carried off on a stretcher upon arrival at Pago Pago. His death was reported soon afterwards. It is somehow fitting, therefore, that the Papers of Gurr and Westbrook are now housed together in the Alexander Turnbull Library. But only by a long series of coincidences should this be so. The Gurr Papers would have remained to moulder in an Auckland home had not the late R. P. Gilson tracked them down in 1955. It was lucky, too, that West-

brook’s Papers were preserved. The credit for their ‘discovery’ goes to Derek Freeman who first heard about them vaguely in 1943, while living in Apia. At that time he was unable to look into the matter and shortly afterwards left Samoa to join the RNVR. Returning after the war, as interpreter to the writer and engraver Robert Gibbings, he heard that, in addition to the Papers, Westbrook’s son, Edward, was in possession of several family portraits dating back to the seventeenth century and reputed to be Hogarths. The two sought out Edward Westbrook at his home in Aleisa. Whilst Gibbings and Edward Westbrook were engrossed in discussing the portraits and the Westbrook ancestry, Freeman was able to make a quick appraisal of the Papers. 4 He realised that, despite their uneven quality, they were of considerable historical interest and noticed, with concern, that some were already damaged by the ravages of the climate and insects. In time, they would be completely ruined if left as they were. Before going on to London to study anthropology, Freeman was able to negotiate the transfer of the Westbrook Papers to the Turnbull Library. *****

George Egerton Leigh Westbrook was born in Camberwell, London, in 1860 of a middle-class Congregational family. He sometimes boasted that he ran away from home at the age of sixteen but it seems more likely that he left with the reluctant consent of his family. By his own account, Westbrook arrived in New Zealand soon after in the Famenoth which he then deserted. 5 For the next fourteen or so years he was mainly engaged as a station trader on various small Pacific islands before finally settling down in Samoa in 1891. Apart from three trips abroad, he was to remain there until his death in 1939. During a residence in Samoa covering almost fifty years, Westbrook was engaged in ‘many and varied’ employments. He was foreman to a gang of Samoan labourers on the Mulinu’u race track, he copied documents to be presented before the first Samoan Land Commission, he was a Sheriffs officer and a clerk for the British Consulate, he ran a hotel, collected accounts, was a salesman and a tide-waiter or customs officer. 6 Finally, sometime after the turn of the century, he established his own business and became what Louis Becke described as the new style of trader, *. . . merely a shopkeeper, pure and simple, for he buys and sells over a counter, and keeps books . . . and only for his surroundings might be mistaken for a respectable suburban grocer in England’. 7 In addition to being a storekeeper and importer, Westbrook was a broker for two English insurance companies, and also an active official of the Apia Racing Club and the Samoan branch of the Over-Seas League. He was instrumental in founding the Apia British Club too. 8 Had he stuck to this straight and narrow path his name would certainly be unknown today because

Pacific island traders and merchants are not generally remembered in their own right, excepting those who established large scale companies. Practically all the traders who are now well-known outside their immediate locale achieved this distinction only because they engaged in some other activity, such as H. J. Moors, the writer friend of R. L. Stevenson. 9 So too with Westbrook. As a friend explained, ‘some devil prompted him to take up political matters’ 10 and goaded him into becoming a most persistent and crotchety critic of the New Zealand Administration in Western Samoa. Even in his early days there, in the 1890 s, Westbrook, in common with many of his contemporaries, was difficult in his dealings with the authorities. Having not been subjected to the presence of constituted European authority whilst a station trader, he did not take to this kindly once settled in Samoa. He considered himself to be an English resident in Samoa, endowed therefore with an Englishman’s rights and privileges, and resented these liberties being interfered with. Notwithstanding minor flare-ups, an uneasy peace existed between Westbrook and the various administrations for over thirty years, but in 1926 he and the New Zealand Administration completely fell out with each other. The Administration, it seems, took exceptional umbrage to statements made by Westbrook in a newspaper interview in Auckland. 11 This was followed by a decade of intense bitterness between Westbrook and the Administration that went far beyond mere difference of opinion. Westbrook, for his part, hit out with sustained criticism and when one official called Westbrook ‘an interfereing [sic] old bastard’ 12 he was merely voicing the feelings of the rest. Using more conventional language, the officials described Westbrook as a ‘disaffected’ person.

But even before this confrontation began in earnest, Westbrook was an active belligerent in the political arena. During the 19205, he was twice elected a member of the Legislative Council and was an energetic member of the Citizens’ Committee, a small group that directed and articulated dissident opinion in Western Samoa. He became so engrossed in public affairs, and later in his writings, that his business suffered badly. He had mainly himself to blame for becoming bankrupt which also meant he forfeited his seat in the Council. This, plus other setbacks, soured him and his final ten years were spent in ill-health and harsh circumstances. During this period he remained as politically active as he could, wrote voluminously on Samoan matters and made strenuous, but often pathetic, attempts to reinstate his fallen reputation. *****

The Westbrook Papers, which are catalogued as MS Papers 61, take up five feet of shelf space and are divided into several sections: official papers (folders 1-11) and correspondence (12-25) ; personal correspondence (26-40) and papers (41-47 A); manuscripts (48-88); and news-

paper cuttings (89-99). Before these are examined, however, some general comments are offered. Westbrook kept carbon copies of his writings and correspondence and also typed almost everything that survives. He disliked using pen and ink but even when compelled to do so his handwriting usually reads easily enough. This disparate nature of his papers also calls for comment. Not only did Westbrook hang on to official documents that came his way; he also endeavoured to obtain every single newspaper clipping relating to Samoa for his scrap books, which were his pride and joy. Finally, the physical condition of the material had not undergone too drastic a deterioration during its life in Samoa. Folder 44 contains the only severely damaged material: this loss, though regrettable, is not serious.

These substantial advantages, however, are offset by certain drawbacks, the most serious being the amount of material that has been lost. This process of elimination began in earnest on New Year’s Day 1887 when Westbrook was shipwrecked on Niutao, in the Ellice Islands. He lost all his possessions including the diary he had been keeping for eleven years. In all probability, Westbrook had kept his diary only in fits and starts and at irregular intervals. But in any case the vital document of his formative years in the Pacific is lost to us. His letters to his mother, too, which would date back to the late 1870 s, have all gone astray. Westbrook insists that he brought these back to Samoa in 1926 upon returning from a visit to England, but there is no sign of them amongst his Papers. Added to this is the fact that only about half a dozen letters either to or from Westbrook prior to 1892 are to be found, whilst the relevant records of Henderson and Macfarlane and Co., who employed Westbrook for a period during the 1880 s, were removed by the late J. L. Young for his own purposes and never heard of since. So Westbrook, the station-trader, is no exception to the general run of traders in the Pacific who almost invariably left records of only the most fragmentary nature behind. He did however, like a small band of other traders, write about his trading days at a later date. 13 The published outcome, obscurely entitled Gods Who Die, represents the greater part of Westbrook’s pre-Samoan reminiscences. They fill in what otherwise would be an extensive area of darkness but contain many omissions and inaccuracies.

In addition, Westbrook’s first thirty odd years in Samoa are sparsely documented. Whereas many official papers and some minutes of the Apia Racing Club (folder 45) are extant, precious little survives in the way of personal correspondence. The reasons for this can only be surmised but it seems that Westbrook, like most other people, threw away letters and newspapers but tended to keep official documents. But there

can be little doubt why, from the mid 19205, he began diligently to file away his correspondence and keep copies of his outgoing letters and other writings. He was, by this time, in the thick of the political turmoil and also an aspiring author and political commentator. He could therefore ill afford to lose or throw away any more material. Hence, over seven-eighths of Westbrook’s Papers relate to or were written during the last fifteen years of his life. This imbalance presents difficulties for the researcher because Westbrook tended to portray himself in an unduly flattering light and liked to reconstruct past events as he thought they ought to have been. Certainly this would allow one to see Westbrook as he viewed himself in his twilight years, but it is also easy to be misled. Westbrook was, most seriously, especially prone to falsifying his accounts of previous occurrences in order to authenticate his current assumptions. Thus the German administration of Samoa (1900-1914), which he frequently abused during its years of rule, was later written of in a most eulogistic strain the purpose being to blacken the New Zealand administration’s image. This fact was too blatant to be missed by Westbrook’s critics 14 but he is not so transparent on other matters, such as indentured Chinese labour and his feelings towards the British Military Administration.

OFFICIAL PAPERS This section contains a disparate collection of material covering German, British military and New Zealand rule in Western Samoa plus some Papuan statutory papers. In view of this diversity, it is merely intended here to list some of the material whose presence is not indicated by the Westbrook Papers inventory. The list is very selective, though, and the criteria for inclusion are not so much the importance of a particular document as the fact that it is not readily available elsewhere. All official printed ordinances, debates and the like, of which there are many, are therefore excluded.

Folder 3: Legislative Council Papers, 1924-27 Reply to an address in Reply delivered by Toelupe at the Fono of Faipules, December 1926. Westbrook himself probably wrote this. Letter from R. P. Berking, the President of the Planters’ Association, to the Administrator and Legislative Council asking that Reparation Estates be released on freehold as an incentive to young planters. The first page is missing hence the date of writing is unknown. Propositions for a Native Council, (n.d.) The subject matter of this document ranges far beyond native councils. Such matters as the water supply and Whit Monday are discussed.

Folder 4: Pamphlets, Reports, Petitions, etc., 1907, 1929-30 Report on General Matters, 31 December 1929. Written by Westbrook three days after ‘Black Saturday’ when the police and members of the Mau clashed, resulting in the deaths of eleven Samoans and one European policeman. The Report contains Westbrook’s comments on the incident. Remarks on Sir James Allen’s letter to Evelyn Wrench, the organiser of the Overseas Club and Patriotic League. (15pp.) Westbrook lost no time in compiling this rejoinder when Allen brought to question many of his criticisms of the New Zealand Administration in the letter to Wrench. The document is dated 10 November 1920 but this cannot be so as Westbrook mentions Richardson (who became Administrator in 1923) and his own return from England (in July 1926).

Report on the Commercial, Military and Native Administration of Samoa, (n.d.) This is a report to New Zealand’s Prime Minister (W. F. Massey) and Minister of Defence (J. Allen) by W. H. Mulcahy. It was probably written in 1920 or 1921 and, in R. P. Gilson’s opinion, does not appear to have been solicited. 15 Re the Mandate. This 21 + 3pp. report, dated 18 November 1919, was also written by Mulcahy. It might be mentioned that Westbrook’s copy of the Samoan Petition, 1931 contains handwritten comments in the margin. The handwriting is unfamiliar to myself and Gilson was unable to name the culprit. However, he was probably someone in the Administration and his remarks suggest he knew Westbrook quite well. His comments are extremely critical and some factual errors in the Petition draw strongly worded corrections. The insensitive and jaundiced nature of these comments tends to confirm Westbrook’s frequent assertion that the New Zealand officials in Samoa made no attempt to understand or appreciate the Samoan point of view.

Folder 6: General Notices, 1918-29 Text of address by Masiofo Tamasese at the Auckland Town Hall, 27 February 1929, criticising the New Zealand Administration of Samoa.

Folder 7: Miscellaneous Official Papers, 1928-35 An undocumented newspaper clipping reporting the Administrator’s testimony before the Permanent Mandates Commission regarding his Chief Justice’s conviction on a charge of assault is pasted on to Westbrook’s handwritten statement of the incident which is dated 24 June 1929. The two accounts are very much at variance with

each other. (For Westbrook’s letter to the Chief Justice explaining his part in the affair see Westbrook to Woodward, 14 July 1929, folder 38.) Two letters between O. F. Nelson and M. J. Savage, dated December 1935, regarding Nelson’s return to Samoa. Folder 10: Speeches and Addresses, 1923-31 Westbrook’s reply to the Administrator’s article published in the Samoa Times, 3 September 1926. This appears to be a report, perhaps for the Citizens’ Committee. Westbrook has also made handwritten comments in the margins. l6

CORRESPONDENCE Because of, or perhaps in spite of, his deficiencies as a public speaker, Westbrook was a prolific and often effective writer. During the last twenty years of his life, he wrote up his reminiscences, frequently contributed to newspapers, drafted many reports and wrote hundreds of letters about Samoan affairs to his numerous acquaintances. These letters are of two types. Firstly there are those to various officials in the Administration and to unsympathetic politicians in New Zealand and, secondly, a greater volume of correspondence to allies, sympathisers and potential supporters in New Zealand and elsewhere.

His letters to the Administration officials, which comprise a tiny proportion of his Papers, are usually an injudicious blend of criticisms and defence of his own actions. They reveal Westbrook to be a public figure of uneven merit and of far greater complexity than Newton Rowe suggests when he remarked that Westbrook’s comments on current events were ‘more or less pertinent’. 17 In reality Westbrook’s letters reveal him to be capable, either alternately or at the same time, of petty, selfish and ill-founded criticism and of thoughtful, perceptive and constructive comment. It is difficult, for example, to ascertain the extent to which Westbrook was guided by self-interest that masqueraded, amongst other things, as an idealistic concern for British justice. The negative qualities of his letters to officials, together with the very irritating tone about them, did nothing to help Westbrook or the cause he supported. Especially galling must have been the sanctimonious manner in which he upgraded his expertise. Nevertheless, when publicly attacked he was capable of very effective rejoinder which could have given no joy to the recipient. As he wrote, in wrath, to Richardson: Take for instance the fact of you accusing me of heading a riot, at the same time refusing to give your source of information, to enable me to take proceedings against those who were evidently stuffing you with a lot of lies. You and your officials are the cause

of all the trouble in Samoa, and because those who knew better about Samoa than you did, and were in a position to advise you, you not only took offence but deported them without trial and afterwards bore false witness against them at Geneva behind closed doors. 18 But Westbrook was much more inclined to preach to the converted. It was largely through his efforts that the New Zealand Samoa Defence League, the New Zealand Samoa Guardian, along with Nelson, Gurr and others were kept informed of developments in Samoa. He also did good service to anyone else whom he thought might help the dissident cause in Samoa. Thus, Newton Rowe was given every assistance in the writing of a book on Samoa 19 and the support of Harry Holland, the Labour Party leader, was energetically cultivated. It was information from Westbrook and Nelson that enabled Holland to elevate ‘the disturbed situation in Samoa’ to national importance on several occasions and also to write his pamphlet, The Revolt of the Samoans . 20

For about eight years Westbrook kept in touch with Holland. Their exchanges were notably cordial and this hides the fact that the area of agreement between the two was extremely limited. But Holland, the militant socialist, was not prepared to accept many of the assertions of Westbrook, the small capitalist. Neither was he interested in Westbrook’s personal and financial problems. All he wanted was someone in Samoa to keep him informed of ‘intolerable administrative acts’ and ‘outrageous injustices’. It is therefore wrong to say that *. . . although Holland used some of Westbrook’s information, he did not use it uncritically or without discrimination’. 21 Rather, he accepted without a moment’s notice the information from Westbrook’s long letters acceptable to his doctrinaire socialist thinking and ignored details to the contrary. Indeed, Westbrook’s naivety is staggering. In all innocence, he assumed that Holland supported capitalist trading in Samoa and expected him to speak out against Richardson’s efforts to nationalise the copra market. Holland did precisely the opposite. 22 And being unaware of another socialist principle, he thought Holland would go along with his assertions that traders in Samoa did not exploit the Samoans. Again Holland failed to oblige. 23 Thus to say that Westbrook attempted to use Holland for his own ends 24 is only part of the story. Each approached the other with a different purpose in mind but both attempted to use the other. Holland, being the more experienced politician, got the better of the bargain. He asked Westbrook for specific information, which he got along with numerous grievances that he ignored.

If Holland was less than scrupulous in his dealings with Westbrook it is only because he had no other choice. His humanitarian commitment towards ‘non-self governing peoples’ impelled him to do something for

the Samoans but the only people in Samoa able to help him were capitalists such as Nelson and Westbrook. The oddness of the situation did not pass unnoticed. It provided Holland’s critics with a powerful argument and sorely embarrassed his Labour Party colleagues. Plolland disliked being reminded of this ‘weird alliance’ but it could not have displeased him that he was attaining an objective by manipulating a capitalist.

‘Biograph) ,’ it has been said, ‘is about a man, and the ideal data is that which seems to take us deepest into his or her personality, like Florence Nightingale’s notes from God and Alfred Deakin’s prayers.’ 25 It is fortunate that this ideal data is to be found in quantity amongst Westbrook’s letters to Julian Dana, the American author who saw Gods Who Die through the press. Westbrook, who was always careful to ‘maintain a stiff upper lip’, took Dana completely into his confidence between 1933 and 1935. He consistently revealed to Dana things about himself that only crop up occasionally in his letters to others 26 and he unburdened his personal woes upon Dana. Westbrook’s friends—and there were not many left by this time—probably realised the extent of his private worries, which his poor health aggravated, but only by observation and not through mail. He confided so completely in Dana probably because the latter was the only outsider removed from the political scene whom Westbrook trusted. He could not allow the others to see that he was merely a man of common clay yet he desperately needed someone to talk to, hence the intimate letters to Dana. Dana, on the other hand, was reticent in revealing personal details about himself but flattered Westbrook in a nauseating manner. How nice it must be to know that you will soon be a very famous person! I think I’ve done a good and truthful job in writing your story, George, but the thing that will please me most (outside of the fact that, as my friend, I want the book to please you) is that the people of Apia and Samoa will have to sit up and take notice of the First Gentleman of Samoa in their midst. Yours enthusiastically, Dana 27

Westbrook’s correspondence also reveals the extent to which he was consumed by the political situation in Samoa. Whether writing to his son in Auckland, to old acquaintances of his early trading days, to the editor of the Pacific Islands Monthly or to friends and correspondents in New Zealand, Westbrook invariably has a preponderant amount to say about events in Samoa. Quite clearly, his involvement in politics became an obsession that resulted in his losing both sense of proportion and direction. In the end he felt he could not withdraw from the arena.

His friends thought otherwise but failed to realise that politics was his life —the focal point that gave meaning to his existence. To a limited extent his writings diverted him but more often than not they served to exacerbate his political passions as his writings about Samoa invariably involved politics. Hence, if it is not his politics, it is his writings that loom large in his correspondence but seldom his family and business.

By the 19305, Westbrook’s letters had a more urgent tone about them. Realising that the end is approaching, he becomes obsessively anxious to have his personal correctness acknowledged and his work for Samoa fittingly recognised. In addition, he saw that Nelson and the Mau now regarded him as a silly old fool ready to be put out to pasture. So he stepped up his letter writing campaign. Many of the letters of the 1930 s seem to be written on the spur of the moment: perhaps to compensate for being pushed to the outer edges of the political arena. Their value lies in the volume and variety, the spontaneity and the amount of information they contain. Often they are garbled, indicating the extent of Westbrook’s personal distress. Now in his seventies, he carried his years heavily. The independence he was once so proud of withered under the onslaught of ill-health, financial worries and loneliness. Sometimes his efforts were rewarded and he would receive a flattering reply that momentarily satisfied his vanity. But more often than not his letters prompted no such response. One letter to Westbrook however —the final note from Marc T. Greene, an American journalist—stands out above the rest. 28 Greene was one of the few people who, in those final unhappy years, offered to help Westbrook solely out of a sense of common decency. He promised to see Dana and find out why Gods Who Die was not selling. The truth of the matter was far worse than Greene had reckoned upon but he fully shouldered his distasteful task and truthfully (but gently) told Westbrook why Gods Who Die was a failure.

PERSONAL PAPERS With a few noteworthy exceptions this section is somewhat unrevealing. The financial papers, for instance, have been seriously depleted and therefore do not make clear the extent or even the nature of Westbrook’s commercial interests. Neither do they enable one to follow the events leading up to his bankruptcy. Perhaps the most important items are the few letters in folder 43 that relate to his pre-Samoan days in the Pacific. They are especially significant as they are the only surviving letters of this period and give a picture of Westbrook, the station trader, that leaves one with the impression that he was not at all successful in this occupation: an impression, moreover, that Westbrook sought to conceal in Gods Who Die.

His personal papers also contain the correspondence relating to the Leigh family history and pictures (folder 42). Westbrook, who developed an itch to establish his pedigree, believed himself to be a direct descendant of Henry VII of England and these papers contain what was, to Westbrook’s mind, proof of this. It seems, however, that Westbrook’s connection with British nobility, let alone royalty, was so remote as to be meaningless for his purposes.

MANUSCRIPTS The greater volume of the Westbrook Papers consists of hundreds of reminiscences and political tracts which are uneven in quality and suspect in their accuracy. Most are no more than six pages in length but a few are over forty pages.

What started Westbrook writing? He was renowned for his ability at spinning a yarn and, over the years, must often have thought of capitalising on this talent. By 1925 he had already published a few reminiscences and newspaper commentaries of a political nature. Only after 1925, did Westbrook seriously consider writing books. On his way to England he passed through Tahiti and met the author W. R. Keable who \ . . must be making pots of money out of his novels’. 29 He also received encouragement from James Cowan, whilst stopping-over in Auckland on the return voyage. 30

For the next ten years, Westbrook churned out ‘reams of typed stuff. Most of his writings pertain to Samoa but he also wrote a considerable amount on his pre-Samoan days. Many of these reminiscences were strung together and eventually published in 1935 under the title Gods Who Die. That work was originally to have been edited by the late R. A. K. Mason who, though going through a difficult period in his life, put a great deal of work into the venture. He not only selected and collated Westbrook’s typescripts and organised the structure of the book but completely typed the entire manuscript which ran into almost 300 quarto pages. 31 But Westbrook broke his connection with Mason in 1933 when Dana offered to see the work through the press. This took Dana over two years to accomplish and the book sold poorly, to Westbrook’s acute distress. Dana clearly promised Westbrook many things he was in no position to fulfil, including fame and fortune, and left Westbrook under the impression that movie companies would trample each other in the rush to secure the book’s film rights. Here, it must also be pointed out that the statement made in the title-page of Gods Who Die, that these stories were ‘told to Julian Dana’, is a factual monstrosity. Dana never met Westbrook in Auckland, as he claimed. 32 Instead, he was sent the manuscript that Mason typed along with other typescripts and given ‘every freedom’ in their preparation for publication. It is not difficult to

detect where Dana tinkered about with Westbrook’s text as his excessively stylistic additions stand out in stark contrast to the more sober prose of Westbrook. In all probability, the absurd title and chapter headings were his handiwork. What little Dana did, he did badly. Hence it is Mason who deserves the editorial credit.

Apart from the results of Dana’s efforts, Gods Who Die is representative of the style and quality of Westbrook’s pre-Samoan reminiscences. Everything was written from memory long after the events described and, fortunately, mostly before Westbrook’s memory began to falter. A close reading reveals a multitude of errors and incidents of doubtful authenticity whilst the dates, not surprisingly, are untrustworthy and often incompatible. But much of what he says is true and even some rather improbable tales have a ring of truth about them. He doubtless related actual fact, for instance, when he wrote of islanders being frightened off by a trader removing his false teeth. Similar incidents involving removable eye-balls and peg legs as well as false teeth are on record. 33 But one is advised to treat Westbrook’s pre-Samoan reminiscences with caution as the following case studies, taken from Gods Who Die, demonstrate. These are the accounts of snakes on Rotuma, the visit to Abemama in 1880 and Captain Edward Rodd. 34

The passage on the snakes shows Westbrook to be an unsophisticated amateur ethnographer whose accounts based on oral tradition need to be treated with extreme caution. It was improper of Westbrook not to disclose his method of getting West India Jack, his informant, to speak about old times on Rotuma. Westbrook would proceed by giving West India Jack ‘. . . a nip of Fiji rum —half a big beer glass . . . which he drank neat’. 35 Not surprisingly, Jack became ‘very talkative’ on these occasions. And it was equally improper for Westbrook to inform his readers that most of Jack’s ‘. . . tales were verified by the older islanders with whom I was friendly’ when, in fact, they were *. . . verified by a very old native named Nicola who spoke very fluent “sea” English and who had been sailing in ships from boyhood, being well acquainted with most of the big seaports of the world’. 36 In other words, Westbrook as an old man is writing about what he heard as a twenty-year-old trader. His informant was an eighty to ninety-year-old West Indian mulatto, pickled for the occasion, relating stories of his younger days in Rotuma. These, in turn, were ‘confirmed’ by another ‘very old native’ who had spent most of his life at sea.

The second case study, Westbrook’s account of the stop-over at Abemama in the Gilbert Islands, is largely a description of the eccentricities of its ruler, Tem Binoka. No one who ever saw Binoka was likely to forget him or the manner in which he operated. In his own lifetime he gained immense notoriety and prestige. Certainly, he was the most i-

talked about island chief of his day 37 as instanced by the fact that F. J. Moss, who was forced to by-pass Abemama when voyaging through the South Seas in 1886, was able to produce a good description of Binoka on the basis of what he had been told. 38 Thus it is not surprising that all the accounts of Binoka, which were nearly always written on the basis of first-hand acquaintance, tally broadly but not exactly. It was difficult to go astray here because Binoka was so unforgettable and his habits so completely different from anything hitherto encountered. His size and dress, the fact that he required careful handling, the hospitality that visiting captains had to accord to him, his acquisitive impulses, the contents of his storehouses, his prowess in the use of firearms, the native pilot, the royal gangplank, the absolute nature of his rule: these are the things invariably mentioned in written accounts of Binoka. Essentially, Westbrook’s account is but one of a number. 39

He does, however, make one glaring blunder that arouses one’s suspicions. The two separate references about Abemamans being drunk are absurd. 40 For prohibition had been enforced since the days of Binoka’s father with such savagery that temperance was universal amongst the Abemamans. (Members of the royal household, on the other hand, were known to get uproariously drunk.) 41 Moreover, Westbrook was anchored off Abemama in 1880, not long after the liquor laws there were tightened up. 42 How could Westbrook have made such a mistake? Probably, he got his stories mixed up. It may be that he was thinking of the incident four years previous when the brig Vision anchored off Butaritari (another island in the Gilbert group) to find that a recently departed vessel had \ . . landed a good deal of liquor, and his Majesty and his Court have not been sober since’. 43 The two accounts are remarkably similar but, more to the point, Westbrook first went to the South Seas in the Vision itself and he must have heard about the incident sometime on the voyage between Auckland and the Marshall Islands. It is also quite conceivable that Westbrook used Stevenson’s In the South Seas to refresh his memory on Binoka. Stevenson, however, only made two references to the rigidly enforced prohibition which Westbrook could easily have missed. 44 Hence Stevenson’s account did not, assuming it was referred to, save Westbrook from error.

Westbrook’s account of Binoka’s method of smoking is interesting as it differs from those of Moss and Woodford who both maintain that on account of Binoka’s laziness one of his wives blew smoke into his mouth for him to exhale. Westbrook, on the other hand, states that this was Binoka’s way of circumventing the promise to give up smoking that the Rev. Hiram Bingham extracted from him. 45 The explanation by Moss and Woodford is closer to the truth. Binoka, by virtue of his rank,

expected to have such menial things done for him. As Woodford wrote in 1884, he ‘. . . kept getting me to light his pipe for him’. 46 The passage on Binoka also provides an example of the manner in which Dana detrimentally tampered with Westbrook’s text. In Gods Who Die there is an account of Binoka’s mother being violently sick on board the Falcon. But a certain section is missing: The pretty maids of [the Queen] looked concerned. It was scarcely expected that a woman of such royal dignity should be led to the side to discharge over the ship’s rail; so, as she vomited, they caught it and threw it overboard with . . . their hands. The sight was rather repulsive. . . . 47

This statement is doubtless true. The maids would have been obliged to act as they did on account of the queen’s rank. The third and final case study is Westbrook’s description of the old trading captain, Edward Rodd. This passage demonstrates that Westbrook has to be checked upon points of detail. The ‘blood-thirsty Solomon Islands’ was not the scene of the skirmish in which Rodd lost his left hand and his right eye. That took place in Morare Bay, New Caledonia. 48 Westbrook is correct, however, to say that Rodd was an apprentice on the mission brig Camden when John Williams was killed at Erromanga in the New Hebrides. 49 But Westbrook’s description of Rodd can be used to show how he tended to romanticise in his writings. He gives a flattering account of Rodd who, in earlier years, was the most ruffianly of Robert Town’s trading captains. 50 Further specific criticisms can be levelled at Gods Who Die. Nowhere does he mention there that he had children by island women 51 whilst his invective against missionaries is partly the product of an embittered mind. But, more seriously, the book gives a romanticised view of a past that never could have been. The chapter on Funafuti, for example, bears no resemblance to a statement Westbrook made at the time:

If you would only bear in mind what a wretched life it is living on one of these sandbanks, no company, no amusement, no Theatres, no Bank Holidays, no beefsteak or fresh vegetables for 7 years, if sick no doctor, no news from home or friends, letters often lost or laid carelessly by, several times I have not received letters until long after written. 52 And over forty years later, in a letter to Dana, Westbrook said: I have every reason to regret my wayward life, living on low-lying atolls. On these isolated one just dreams one’s time away. Time flies before one is aware of it. 53 Westbrook deliberately falsified or omitted many of the details concerning himself for a number of reasons, such as interest in making

money and a name for himself out of Gods Who Die rather than in presenting the truth. Yet he had the effrontery to say: The story should be recorded. It is up to old people like myself to impart historical knowledge of the islands to those able to place such information on record. Happenings we know to be true may be of benefit to anthropologists and others who come after them. 54 *****

Dana, in his introduction to Gods Who Die, pictured Westbrook as a gallant and magnanimous gentleman fighting a lonely battle on behalf of the Samoans. Westbrook, in some of his Samoan writings also endeavoured to give that impression ss but, in reality, he regarded the Samoans mainly as means to an end and not as an end in themselves. 56 He even went so far as to say he was fighting his own battle ‘quite independent of Mr Nelson and the Samoans’. 57 Much of his Samoan material was also to have been converted into books but the failure of Gods Who Die ruled out this possibility. Despite the occasional assertion to the contrary, the projected volumes on Samoa (folders 61 to 64) were regarded by their maker as providing proof that he ‘was right after all’ and the means to get back on a firm financial footing. ‘The second book,’ he wrote to Dana, ‘will reinstate me in every way and absolve me from all political intrigue.’ 58 As such, his Samoan writings differ from his trader accounts in that they are nearly all politically inclined. The same verdict passed on his letters applies here. His Samoan manuscripts are of uneven quality as he oscillated between selfish and unreasonable criticism and penetrating and constructive comment. Westbrook’s writings on the Mau in folders 56 and 57, for example, are the product of perception and understanding but this cannot always be said as he inveighs against the Administration unceasingly. It is unfortunate that many of these manuscripts are undated for their value is diminished unless the year of writing can be ascertained by comments in the text. *****

NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS Newton Rowe in his pen sketch of Westbrook referred to ‘his great books of press-cuttings that contain everything he had ever written’. 59 Although impressive, their contents are confined to what Westbrook actually wrote for newspapers plus many other clippings on Samoa. Their comprehensiveness testifies to the vigour with which he approached the task and these volumes of clippings constitute a valuable collection. It is therefore unfortunate that Westbrook was not always equally energetic in documenting this collection. Neither did he normally indicate his authorship of anonymous articles.

CONCLUSION The most important and substantial sections of the Westbrook Papers pertain to Samoa during the period of the New Zealand Administration. Yet writers on twentieth century Samoa have used private papers very little and almost completely ignored Westbrook’s. This does not seem to have led to any significant distortion as his Papers tend to confirm the reliable interpretations rather than throw any new light on the subject. 60 It does suggest, however, that a greater use of private papers here would tighten up and give more precision to generalisations already made. It is a pity that so much of the earlier material relating to Westbrook has been lost or destroyed. He provides a classic example of the deculturated European, a group whose members never really came to terms with their environment and, straddled between two conflicting cultures, found that the Pacific was both their world and their cage. That side of Westbrook’s life—his years as a station trader—is largely undocumented and one has to read carefully between the lines to deduce what must have been. He hints at so much occasionally, often in an unguarded moment. All the more pity, therefore, that when he wrote about these ‘vanished years’ at a much later date he declined to relate the harsh and hopeless realities of the situation.

* I am grateful to Professor J. W. Davidson and Dr John Young for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.

REFERENCES Unless otherwise stated, all manuscript references pertain to the Westbrook Papers (MS Papers 61, Alexander Turnbull Library). The number in parenthesis indicates the folder. 1 G. E. L. Westbrook to Julian Dana, 16 November 1934 (29). 2 W. Tarr to Dana, 3 July 1933 (29). 3 Westbrook to O. F. Nelson, 9 January 1930 (13). 4 Gibbings gives a highly fictionalised account of this meeting with Edward Westbrook in Over the Reefs (London: 1948) pp. 38-46. 5 Dana, Gods Who Die. The story of Samoa’s greatest adventurer (New York: 1935) pp. 10, 21-22. According to available evidence, many of the details given by Westbrook are incorrect. The Famenoth never belonged to the Aberdeen White Star Line, as he said it did, nor did she visit New Zealand in 1876. See P. A. Eadie to R. A. K. Mason, 18 June 1932 (27). 6 Westbrook, ‘I settle in Samoa’, n.d. pp. 17-18 (61). 7 Louis Becke, ‘The Old and New Style South Sea Trader’, Wild Life in Southern Seas (London: 1897) p. 317. 8 [Thomas Trood] to Westbrook, 19 April 1913 (75). 9 H. J. Moors, With Stevenson in Samoa (Boston: 1910). 10 Tarr to Dana, 3 July 1933 (29). 11 ‘Sorrows of Samoa’, Auckland Star, 11 May 1926. 12 Westbrook to H. E. Holland, 30 November 1928 (14). See also Westbrook to Holland, 24 January 1927 (14). 13 Edward Lucett, Rovings in the Pacific from 1837-49 . . . (London: 1851);

C. M. Ramsay & C. P. Plumb, Tin Can Island . . . (London: n.d.); S. W. Powell, A Trader’s Tale (London: 1926) & A South Sea Diary (London: 1943); J. H. C. Dickinson, A Trader in the Savage Solomons . . . (London: 1927); John Cameron, John Cameron’s Odyssey (New York: 1928); R. D. Frisbie, The Book of Puka-Puka (London: 1930); John Cromar, Jock of the Islands: early days in the South Seas . . . (London: 1935); Julian Hillas (pseud.) [R. Julian Dashwood], South Seas Paradise (London: 1965). 14 ‘Notes of Interview between the Hon. W. Nosworthy, Minister of External Affairs, and the Citizens’ Committee at Apia, 11th June, 1927’, New Zealand, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1927, A-48, p. 22. (Hereafter A.J.H.R.) 15 Gilson’s notes of Samoan source material are housed in the Department of Pacific History, Australian National University. Folder 47 of this collection contains Gilson’s annotated and typewritten notes from the Westbrook Papers. See p. 14. 16 For a similar piece of writing see Westbrook, ‘Comments on Richardson’s Article in London “Times” (Feb. 22nd, 1927) . . .’, 24 February 1927 (52). 17 N. A. Rowe, Samoa Under the Sailing Gods (London: 1930) p. 8. 18 Westbrook to Administrator, 28 January 1928, open letter (12).

19 Rowe, Samoa Under the Sailing Gods. 20 Holland, The Revolt of the Samoans (Wellington: 1928). 21 P. J. O’Farrell, Harry Holland: militant socialist (Canberra: 1964) p. 173. 22 Westbrook to Holland, 16 December 1926 (14); Holland, The Revolt of the Samoans, p. 16. 23 Westbrook to Holland, 24 January 1927 (14). 24 O’Farrell, Harry Holland, p. 176. 25 Keith Sinclair, ‘On Writing Shist’, Historical Studies, XIII: 51 (October 1968) p. 428. 20 Westbrook to A. G. Smyth, 10 September 1930 (38). 27 Dana to Westbrook, 20 July 1935 (28). 28 Marc T. Greene to Westbrook, 20 May [1937] (30). 29 Westbrook to Administrator [1925] (37). See also Westbrook to Nelson [1925] (12). Both these letters were written in London. 30 [James Cowan] ‘South Sea Adventures’, New Zealand Free Lance, 12 May 1926, p. 6. 31 Westbrook, ‘An Old Trader in the South Seas being the record of my adventures while trading in the Pacific Islands from the ’seventies’, (edited with a preface by R. A. K. Mason) (82A). 32 Dana, ‘Preface to Adventure’, Gods Who Die, p. xi; Westbrook to Dana, 14 June 1933 (29). 33 Dana, Gods Who Die, pp. 53-54; Christopher Legge & Jennifer Terrell, ‘James Toutant Proctor’, The Journal of Pacific History, V (1970), p. 83; Mrs Shane Leslie, A Girlhood in the Pacific (London: 1943) p. 38. 34 Dana, Gods Who Die, pp. 159-60, 101-09, 98 respectively. 35 Westbrook to Dana, 17 April 1934 (29). 3G H. Romilly, The Western Pacific and New Guinea (London: 1887) pp. 193-4. 37 Becke, ‘An Island King’, Wild Life in Southern Seas, p. 248. 38 Frederick J. Moss, Through Corals and Atolls in the Great South Seas (London: 1889) pp. 130-35. 39 For a recent biography of Binoka see H. E. Maude, ‘Baiteke and Binoka of Abemama: arbiters of change in the Gilbert Islands’, J. W. Davidson & Deryck

Scarr (eds.), Pacific Islands Portraits (Canberra: 1970) pp. 201-24. His footnotes provide an almost complete list of sources on Binoka. 40 Dana, Gods Who Die, pp. 102, 104. The error is repeated in ‘The Autocrat of the South Seas’, 20 January 1933, p. 2 (73). 41 Maude, ‘Baiteke and Binoka . . .’ p. 211 & ‘Two Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson’, The Journal of Pacific History, II (1967) p. 188; Thomson Murray MacCallum, Adrift in the South Seas including adventures with Robert Louis Stevenson (Los Angeles: 1934) p. 269; H. B. Sterndale, ‘Memoranda by Mr Sterndale on some of the South Sea Islands’, A.J.H.R., 1874, A-38, p. 20. 42 Maude, ‘Baiteke and Binoka . . .’ p. 214. 43 James L. Young, Private Journal, 6 January 1875 - 31 December 1877. Pacific Manuscript Bureau microfilm 21, frame 5. 44 Stevenson, In the South Seas, Chatto & Windus ed., (London: 1900), pp. 319-20. 45 Dana, Gods Who Die, pp. 108-09; Moss, Through Corals and Atolls . . . , p. 134; C. M. Woodford, ‘Journal of Visit to Gilbert & Ellice Islands in 1884’, p. 76. Woodford Papers (25). By courtesy of Mr C. E. M. Woodford. 46 Woodford, ‘Journal of Visit to Gilbert & Ellice Islands . . .’, p. 66. 47 Cf. Dana, Gods Who Die, p. 108, with Westbrook, ‘An Old Trader in the South Seas . . .’, p. 83.

48 Cf. Dana, Gods Who Die, p. 98 with Dorothy Shineberg, They Came for Sandalwood: a study of the sandalwood trade in the South-west Pacific 18301865 (Melbourne: 1967) p. 83. 49 H. A. Robertson, Erromanga, the Martyr Isle (London: 1902), p. 32. 50 Shineberg, They Came for Sandalwood, pp. 89, 118. 51 Westbrook to Dana, 16 November 1934 (29). 52 Westbrook to Trustees of Henderson and Macfarlane’s Estate, n.d. (43). Quoted in Deryck Scarr, Fragments of Empire: a history of the Western Pacific High Commission, 1874-1914 (Canberra: 1967) p. 118 n. 53 Westbrook to Dana, 14 June 1934 (29). 54 Westbrook to Dana, 31 January 1935 (29). 55 Westbrook to Administrator, 28 January 1928 (12). 56 Westbrook to Holland, 24 January 1927 (14). 57 Westbrook to Dana, 25 March 1934 (29). 58 Westbrook to Dana, 17 October 1934 (29). 59 Rowe, Samoa Under the Sailing Gods, p. 8. 60 It is therefore to be expected that in describing the substance of this dissent, writers have closely mirrored Westbrook’s criticisms without recourse to his Papers. J. W. Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa: the emergence of the Independent State of Western Samoa (Melbourne: 1967) pp. 123-24; Linden A. Mander, Some Dependent Peoples of the South Pacific (Leiden: 1954) pp. 108-12; Joseph J. Arden, ‘The Political Development of Western Samoa from Mandate to Independence’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1964, pp. 78-83. See also Charlotte Cameron, Two Years in the Southern Seas (London: 1923) pp. 169-71.