第52章 "FUROR CONSULARIS"(5)

To our galled experience the paper appears moderate;to their untried sensations it seems violent.We think a public man fair game;we think it a part of his duty,and I am told he finds it a part of his reward,to be continually canvassed by the press.For the Germans,on the other hand,an official wears a certain sacredness;when he is called over the coals,they are shocked,and (if the official be a German)feel that Germany itself has been insulted.The SAMOA TIMES had been long a mountain of offence.

Brandeis had imported from the colonies another printer of the name of Jones,to deprive Cusack of the government printing.German sailors had come ashore one day,wild with offended patriotism,to punish the editor with stripes,and the result was delightfully amusing.The champions asked for the English printer.They were shown the wrong man,and the blows intended for Cusack had hailed on the shoulders of his rival Jones.On the 12th,Cusack had reprinted an article from a San Francisco paper;the Germans had complained;and de Coetlogon,in a moment of weakness,had fined the editor twenty pounds.The judgment was afterwards reversed in Fiji;but even at the time it had not satisfied the Germans.And so now,on the third day of martial law,the paper was suppressed.

Here we have another of these international obscurities.To Fritze the step seemed natural and obvious;for Anglo-Saxons it was a hand laid upon the altar;and the month was scarce out before the voice of Senator Frye announced to his colleagues that free speech had been suppressed in Samoa.

Perhaps we must seek some similar explanation for Fritze's short-lived code,published and withdrawn the next day,the 23rd.Fritze himself was in no humour for extremities.He was much in the position of a lieutenant who should perceive his captain urging the ship upon the rocks.It is plain he had lost all confidence in his commanding officer "upon the legal side";and we find him writing home with anxious candour.He had understood that martial law implied military possession;he was in military possession of nothing but his ship,and shrewdly suspected that his martial jurisdiction should be confined within the same limits."As a matter of fact,"he writes,"we do not occupy the territory,and cannot give foreigners the necessary protection,because Mataafa and his people can at any moment forcibly interrupt me in my jurisdiction."Yet in the eyes of Anglo-Saxons the severity of his code appeared burlesque.I give but three of its provisions.The crime of inciting German troops "by any means,as,for instance,informing them of proclamations by the enemy,"was punishable with death;that of "publishing or secretly distributing anything,whether printed or written,bearing on the war,"with prison or deportation;and that of calling or attending a public meeting,unless permitted,with the same.Such were the tender mercies of Knappe,lurking in the western end of the German quarter,where Mataafa could "at any moment"interrupt his jurisdiction.