" The news from Samoa is deplorable. The party of
the Pretender Mataafa, secretly encouraged, there can be little doubt, either by German officials or by Germans of local influence, keep on attacking the English and Americans, who in return attack them. On April 1st a force of two hundred and fourteen British and Americans, with some friendly Samoans, entered a plantation in which a strong force of insurgents lay concealed. They were received with a sharp fire from behind the trees, the " friendlies " fled, and, the machine-gun getting jammed, the white men were forced to retreat, losing one British and two American officers, and two British and five American sailors. The result will be to encourage Mataafa's party, whose leaders have not the know- ledge to perceive that, as British and American officers have fallen fighting side by side, the ultimate defeat of their opponents is a mere question of time. Already two more British ships have been ordered to Apia. The three Govern- ments concerned will not, it is said, be turned from their course by this untoward event, and the three Commissioners have been appointed ; but they are by no means as yet-in full harmony. All agree to the appointment of a Com- mission with "advisory powers," but the Germans insist that the Commissioners should be unanimous before they can take action even' in the smallest details, -- a rule which appears intended to reduce the Commission to' a, mere group 'of reporters. Apparently the German Govern- ment believes that if it worries its allies sufficiently they will surrender their claims. If that is the Emperor's policy he does not understand the patience of Englishmen and Americans, trained by their political systems to endure the "drip, drip, drip of dilatory debate." No one who has ever endured the method of conducting business in the House of Commons or in Congress can ever be "bustled" into anything;
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