3

A.—3b

One remarkable circumstance in respect to the operations of this famous mercantile house, and to which their great success may be in some degree attributed, is that they pay, as a rule, very low wages but liberal commissions. Thus, masters of ships belonging to them, and ranging from 500 to 1,000 tons, receive no more than §25 per month on voyages which extend from one to three years out and home; but over and above this, they are allowed three per cent, on the net profits of the adventure. In this connection, having introduced the subject of the Messrs. Godeffroy, I may as well describe (as far as is known to me) the origin and organization of their operations in this part of the Pacific. Previous to the year 1857, this famous firm, which is counted among the wealthiest of the merchants of Hamburg, maintained a fleet of vessels, of which a certain number traded about the Indian sea, under tho directions of an agent established at Cochin ; others made periodical voyages to the Spanish main, making their place of rendezvous at Valparaiso. At Cochin, they maintained a large cocoa-nut oil pressing establishment. At Valparaiso, their captains took their instructions from a general agent, whose subordinates resided at Coquimbo, Valdivia Talcuano, Guayaquil, San Jose de Guatemala, and elsewhere. They traded chiefly in saltpetre, copper, and cochineal. At this time, it was customary for Tahitian traders to dispose of their produce in Valparaiso, and to return to the Society Islands with cargoes of flour, &c, for the supply of the French garrison. The attention of Mr. Anselm, the agent of Messrs. Godeffroy, was attracted to their operations. He visited the Society Isles, and perceiving the great profits which Messrs. Hort Brothers and John Brander were making by the traffic in cocoa-nut oil and pearl shell, he established an agency in the Paumotus. Messrs. Hort and Brander had separately branch establishments in the Navigator Isles, which they made an intermediate station between Tahiti and Sydney. Anselm, following their example, removed himself there, and, under instructions from principals in Hamburg, made it the head-quarters of their operations in tho Pacific. He was lost at sea, but the establishment which he founded flourished and assumed gigantic proportions. By the exercise of great tact and a show of liberality in dealing with the natives, he and his successor (Mr. Theodore AVeber) in a great measure swallowed up the trade of the Samoan group, and in a manner thrust both Hort and Brander off their own ground, as far as that portion of the Pacific was concerned. At the present time (for although my personal experience of them does not extend beyond a date of about two years back, I am given to understand that no change has taken place in their modus operandi), their establishment at Apia, in the Navigator Isles, consists of a superintendent (who is also Consul for Germany), a cashier, eleven clerks, a harbourmaster, two engineers, ten carpenters, two coopers, four plantation managers, a surgeon, and a land surveyor. These constitute the permanent staff, and are all Europeans, chiefly Germans. In addition to these, they employ very many supernumeraries, having among them men of different nationalities, including half-breeds, Portuguese, and Chinamen ; and as plantation labourers, usually about 400 Polynesians imported by them from elsewhere into Samoa, of whom a portion are natives of Savage Island, but the greater number of the Kingsmills and Marshall groups. Their property comprises a commodious harbour, a building yard for small vessels, an extensive settlement, three plantations containing an aggregate of 400 acres of cultivation, and somewhere about 25,000 acres of purchased land, of which the greater proportion is not to be surpassed in fertility in any region of the tropical world. It was bought at a low rate, not upon an average exceeding 75 cents per acre, and paid for chiefly in ammunition and arms, or such articles of barter as are most in vogue among semi-barbarous people. The titles are unexceptionable and perfectly secure. The lands themselves consist of alluvial valleys and elevated plateaux of deep rich volcanic soil, covered in many extensive tracts with valuable timber, intersected by large streams 'available for the floating of logs, and affording on every hand water-power for tho driving of mills. In addition to the virgin soil, at least one-third of their whole property consists of ancient cultivations, abandoned in consequence of intertribal wars, in some cases quite lately, in others during former generations. During the progress of the civil strife which has prevailed for several years back upon the Middle Island of Samoa, the Messrs. Godeffroy enjoyed exceptional advantages in dealing with the natives, from the fact of their possessing a manufactory of arms at Liege, in Belgium, whereby they were enabled to supply the belligerents at a very cheap rate with the material of war. As an instance of the ridiculously low price at which the most valuable lands were bartered away during these disturbances, I will mention that, in the month of May, 1870, Mr. Borne, of Sydney, purchased, in my presence, a block of land at Salafata (a secure harbour visited by whale ships), consisting 0f'320 acres of the richest soil covered with cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, having a stream of water so flowing into the sea that a ship of any size might be moored to the rock beside it, and fill all her water casks with a hose, for a Snider firelock and 100 rounds of Boxer cartridge, of which the value in Shanghai, where it had been purchased, was £2 10s.! Some idea of the magnitude of their operations may be gathered from the fact that, during the year 1870 (at which time I was in their employment), no less than eight large vessels, to wit, the "Johann Cassar," the "Peter Godeffroy," "La Eochelle," the "AVandram," the "Susaune," the " Iserbrook," and two other barques, of which I have forgotten the names (one, I believe, was called the "Victoria"), ranging from 200 to 1,000 tons, loaded in Samoa and the neighbouring isles, and sailed for Europe. During the past few years, tho agents of Messrs. Godeffroy abandoned the Paumotus and other islands claimed as dependencies of France, principally for the reason that at that time (about seven years since) mother-of-pearl commanded an exceptionally low price ; but more in consequence of a determination to strike out a new line for themselves, iv preference to following in the wake of Messrs. Moerenhout, Hort, Brander, and other old-established merchants, who had made Tahiti their headquarters. AVith this view, they pushed their agencies southward into the Friendly archipelago, including Nieue (Savage Island), Niuafou, Fotuna, and AVallis Island ; northward throughout the whole range of the Kingsmills and the isles in their neighbourhood, that is to say, Tokerau, the Ellis, and Gilbert groups, and the Marshalls or Ealicks, through the Carolines; and to Yap, a great island at the entrance of the Luzon Sea, where they purchased 3,000 acres of land, formed a settlement, and established a large depot intended as an intermediate station between their trading post at the Navi-