SAMOA TROUBLES.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 257, 7 February 1889, Page 2

SAMOA TROUBLES.

STRICTURES OF THE TIMES—SOMETHING BEHIND THE SCENES. London, Feb. 5.

The Times, in an article on the si< nation, states that the attitude of England at Samoa is the result of a secret treaty. The circumstances are suspicious, and would be especially damaging if divulged. It is regrettable, the Times considers, that the defence of freedom should devolve on America alone, and it believes there would be a repetition of the New Guinea businea unless the Australian opinion was upheld. Berlin, Feb. 4. The German press advocate a retreat from the present position at Samoa.

These colonies, which feel snch an interest In the preservation jof the independence of Samoa, have every reason to feel grateful to the United States for the firm attitude with which that power has put a stopper on the high-handed dealings of Germany in Samoa; and should feel very little gratitude indeed to England, we regret to say, for the treacherous, if not pusillanimous, part she has played in the same field. It is quite clear that England has been cowed by Prinoe Bismarck and his veiled threats of aiding France in her Egyptian and Oriental aspirations. These colonies will not clone their eyes to the fact that their interests have been utterly bartered away to serve the purposes ot England in the great European game of intrigue ; and it will be a singular national aud political evolution if, through such incidents as thia, the people of these colonies are led to look to America in heu of England as the protector of Anglo-Saxon interests in the South What might come of it ultimately, it mighfl he difficult to surmise; but undoubtedly whila™ in this case the action of England appears to have been double-dealing, and even cowardly, the attitude ol the United States has bean firm, dignified, aud, let us trust, effective.— N. Z. Herald.