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The Diversions of a Prime Minister

X. — The Wolf at the Door

page 143

X.
The Wolf at the Door.

There were several troublesome claims upon the Government to be settled. One of the steamboat companies was receiving a Government subsidy of £50 a — month, and alleged a twelvemonth's contract as a reason for its continuance. We did not want the steamer, nor could we afford to pay the subsidy. Fortunately our predecessor's rooted objection to being bound by paper stood us in good stead. There was no formal written contract, and the claim was compromised. Another New Zealand firm declared that Mr Baker had promised to sell them 500 tons of copra at current market rates in return for their complacence in lending him money at a time when he was hard pressed for it. We had repaid the borrowed money, and we had already sold all our tax copra to another firm for a higher price. In this case also no written agreement was forthcoming. I proposed arbitration by the Consul-General. The case was referred to his law officers, and decided in our favour. The claimants were Plymouth Brethren, and if all the elect are as sharp in business as they were, they are likely to enjoy the good things of this page 144life as well as of the next. Except for trivial amounts, they put their trust in no one; for it was currently reported that the agent in Tonga wrote to his partners in New Zealand telling them to fully insure all goods of over £50 in value, but that they might trust shipments of lesser value "to the care of Almighty Providence."

These difficulties were no sooner settled than a new source of annoyance broke forth. Mr Baker, just before his departure, had engaged a schoolmaster for the Government College for five years, at an annual salary of £200, which the impoverished Treasury was quite incapable of paying. He was offered, and accepted, a sum of £100 and a free passage to Sydney in full release of all claims he might have upon the Government. But before he left Tonga he had made a secret compact with the College boys to return if his salary could be collected. The lads, actuated partly by a genuine desire for education, and partly by a boyish delight at their new-found importance, had gone to the king with Maafu—who joined them in the hope of annoying Tukuaho—and persuaded him to countermand the arrangements made for the school-master's departure. The order arrived in Nukualofa too late, and before the man could be recalled from Sydney his communications to the Australian newspapers had effectually dissipated the king's wish for his return. But the scholars of the College, all thirsting for excitement, set themselves to raise contributions to, pay the salary, and formed themselves into a guild to encourage education and defy the Government. The College had a brass band and a magic-lantern: these were embarked in the Malokula, and taken off to Haapai and Vavau as the page 145nucleus of an entertainment for a money-collecting tour. Tukuaho, Tungi, and Fatafehi were indignant, but powerless to interfere. The entertainments were reported to be an immense success. The band paraded the towns, and took the half-dollars at the doors, and exhibited in rapid This is the cow with the crumpled hornsuccession lantern — slides of the Holy Land and "The house that Jack built," with a fine disregard to subject and sequence. The people cheerfully paid their half-dollars, dimly understanding that the money was to be used in embarrassing the Government. At last the glass chimney of the lantern broke, and the schooner made a page 146special voyage to Nukualofa to beg a new chimney from Tukuaho. It was high time to interfere with these boyish escapades, and we therefore temporised, sending a message to the band that they had overstayed their leave, and would be expelled unless they came back. This brought them to their senses, and they sailed in with flags flying, and the big drum beating defiance. They were forthwith assembled, and offered the choice between obedience to orders or expulsion. They were at first inclined to be mutinous, but on the reflection that the instruments were Government property they became more amenable to discipline.

Tonga is not the first State whose public affairs have been deranged by feminine frailty. Was there not a Mark Antony? But Mark Antony did not write shorthand nor keep the minutes of the Council, and it may therefore be doubted whether he was as necessary to the dying Republic as Uiliame Umufuke, alias Mataka, was to the kingdom of Tonga. Mataka was invaluable. He knew all the secrets of the Cabinet and Privy Council, yet his mouth was closed; he understood the business of each office better than the head of the Department; he could take down a speech in shorthand faster than the speaker could utter the words; and he was a more useful spy and detective than fat Peter or any of his satellites. A blow was struck at the wellbeing of the State when Mataka got into trouble, for there was but one inexorable law for the rich and the poor, the indispensable and the unnecessary.

Mataka's troubles fell on this wise Tukuaho had a fair cousin, Lobase, who had espoused Lulu the bandmaster, page 147now absent in Vavau in the train of the magic-lantern. Mataka, it seems, had been indiscreet, and Lulu had instructed the Inispeketa of Police to prosecute on his behalf. I know nothing of the details—they did not interest me; I only know that Mataka and Lobase were weighed in the scales of justice, and that their scale kicked the beam. Mataka's seat was empty next morning, and the office was disorganised. Sibu made four mistakes in his first letter, and could not find the correspondence register. Later in the day, in the person of a sulky convict with cropped head unloading a banana waggon, I recognised the Clerk of the Privy Council.

The frail fair meanwhile, being unable to find the 60 dollars required to pay her fine, delivered herself up to work it out at the rate of 1s. a-day, and was told off to G.'s household. She was a fair specimen of the grisette of the country, coquettish, naïve, and thoroughly frivolous. Her views of life were matured. She was born into the world, she said, to enjoy herself, and as the capacity for enjoyment wanes when one is old and ugly, pleasures must all be crowded into the fleeting hours of youth. She had heard that there were people who gave their hearts once and for all—she could indeed dimly imagine the condition of mind that brought it. It was very nice and all that, but her own experience was different. She had been in love a great many times, and always just as much each time. What made her fall in love? She did not know. She supposed that the man surpassed all others for strength and beauty—then she loved him, and after a while he grew to seem less handsome in her eyes, and she saw another who surpassed even him. No! She never page 148loved Lulu. He was her husband, chosen for her by her friends: moreover, he was an angry man.

Lobase's punishment sat lightly on her. In due course bandmaster Lulu returned and compounded the matter with the jailer; but even this did not seem to soften the
Lobase.

Lobase.

heart of his spouse. Less than a week after his return he burst into my office in great excitement to complain that band practice was impossible because his cornet was locked up in his house, and "the woman Lobase" had hidden the key. The conjugal recriminations, when she was called upon for explanations, were bitter and shrill. Poor Lulu! His band in the act of rehearsing the grand march from Tannhäuser was easier to manage than his fair but fickle wife.

There is a lack of thoroughness about the Tongans. They pine to live like Europeans, to own implements and horses and saddlery, yet not one of them can bake a loaf page 149of bread, nor forge a bolt, nor splice a strap. Their thirst is not for knowledge, but for showy accomplishments: their genius is frothy and ephemeral. This moral untidiness pervades everything. In the king's palace there is a throne room furnished like an Australian parlour, with Kidderminster carpet, ormolu ornaments under glass shades, and crewel-work mats on the tables,—the whole in unimaginable order,—while in a bare room on the ground-floor the king sleeps on his mat spread on the boards, and eats his yams from a single plate. A Cabinet Minister may be seen sitting on the floor of his well-furnished office eating his mid-day meal from a large dish with his fingers. The Minister of Police bustles about his work, delighted with the new routine he imperfectly understands. "It is excellent," he says with enthusiasm, only he cannot say how many officials draw pay in his department, nor can the Premier as Minister of Education. The latter thinks that they are paid in proportion to the number of their pupils, but he does not know for certain. Shrewd old Sateki, the Auditor-General, alone is not enthusiastic. He dares to think that some day his work will be plain to him, but at present his mind is darkened. He is a really dependable subordinate this Sateki, but I can see that he sighs for the day when he received his orders, right or wrong, and had only to carry them out without the responsibility of deciding anything for himself.

He was the only official besides Tukuaho who attended his office every day. The pay of the Civil servants was fixed on the supposition that they should have time for the cultivation of their food-gardens. The clerks had to attend page 150their offices on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but they were free on all other days in the week. This arrangement had its inconveniences, but so long as it afforded a reason for not increasing the salaries, it could not be altered. Tukuaho did his best to attend every day; but funeral feasts or the requirements of religion (he was a local preacher) often interfered to keep him from the office, and I had to content myself with the reflection that he was advancing our interests by the not less effective means of making friends with the mammon of unrighteousness. But the others did not even keep the short hours required of them. Not many days after our first Cabinet Council there was a fresh alarm that the Treasury was closed again on a Friday. A policeman was despatched in hot haste to fetch the Treasury officials, and in ten minutes a melancholy procession filed into the office, headed by Goschen. "This is Friday," I began, "and the Treasury is closed again at three o'clock. How is our work to go on under such conditions?" The aged Minister and his satellites crouched cross-legged before me like a lot of naughty schoolboys. "We were in church," said Goschen, solemnly. This spiked my gun, and I handed them over to Tukuaho, who knew more of their spiritual requirements than I.

The Tongans are a race of athletes. In foot-races and feats of strength, notably the tug-of-war, they have generally worsted the blue-jackets whom they have challenged, but their real passion is cricket. Soon after its introduction the game became a national danger. The plantations were neglected; the cocoa-nuts lay rotting on the ground: for the whole population played cricket from page 151dawn till dusk all over the island, with a bat if they could get it, but otherwise with a cocoa-nut branch and an unripe orange. They played matches, one village against another, and all the men of each village took an innings. With perhaps seventy-three on one side and fifty-two on the other a match lasted for days; and party feeling sometimes ran so high that at the end the losers fell upon the victors with the bats and stumps to avenge their disgrace. This was all changed when cricket was regulated by law, and confined to Tuesdays and Thursdays only; besides, the heat of the cricket — passion has had time to cool. But I record the matter if only to serve the speakers at cricket-dinners with a useful illustration.

The two principal papers in Auckland were bespattering us with satirical abuse. This was not unexpected, for we had been warned that Mr. Baker was a shareholder in one of them. It is good for a Government to be reviled by the press—it produces a healthy glow of reaction, like a shower-bath on a cold morning; but we owed money in Auckland, and were dependent upon our credit for our supplies. I had a weapon to brandish over the head of one of these organs: the Government printing was done in its office, but I could scarcely insist on its closing its columns to hostile criticisms without providing it with a correspondent free from prejudice. I knew of no one in Tonga at the time who could be trusted to write without bias against the new Administration except myself. I therefore had a message conveyed to the proprietors of the 'Herald' that we could not continue to give our printing to a hostile journal, and that if they wanted our custom they must amend their tone. If their "own correspon-page 152dent" was past reform, I promised to provide them with a monthly letter. To the 'Star' I wrote that we were thinking of dividing our printing if we could find a friendly firm to undertake a portion of it, but that the inimical tone of their paper had hitherto prevented us from doing so. If, however, they would adopt an impartial attitude, I should be glad to meet them half-way by supplying regular news. Thenceforth I became "Our own Correspondent" to both papers, and wrote by each mail two separate letters, alike only in their colourless stolidity, in which neither favour nor ill-will to the Government of Tonga shocked the eye, and the printing was divided. This arrangement was not made too soon, for the wordy effusions of the disappointed schoolmaster, had they appeared in print, would have created a panic among our creditors. The impartiality of the Government in sectarian disputes had had the effect of allaying to some extent the bitter feeling between the rival Churches. But the Wesleyans still suffered disabilities, and were far from satisfied. The abi, or plantations of the ministers, confiscated during the disturbances, had not yet been given back to them, and indeed could not be restored without injustice to the present occupants, who were given possession in good faith by the late Government The Free Church ministers still had possession of a quantity of timber, some windows, and a church bell, bought with the mission funds, and refused to give them up, on the ground that they were paid for with the subscriptions of the Wesleyans who have since turned to the Free Church. No doubt the property was vested in the trustees of the Wesleyan Church, but I urged forbearance, for every day of harmony was a gain page 153to the Wesleyan cause worth far more than the value of the trumpery church property said to be unlawfully detained. So long as the Rev. George Brown remained in Tonga as the head of the mission the Wesleyans showed the most admirable self-restraint. They bore their disabilities with good temper, and did not run the risk of irritating the susceptibilities of the Free Church ministers by attempting to regain any of their lost ground. But he was the General Secretary of Missions, and could not continue to stay in Tonga now that his Church was no longer in imminent danger of extinction. As soon as his restraining influence was withdrawn, and Mr. C— became the head of the mission, there was a change. He was an amateur lawyer, whose natural turn for hairsplitting polemics had been sharpened by much bandying of words with Tongan magistrates during the Reign of Terror. In an evil hour he came to Nukualofa, and with his brother-in-arms began to plan cutting-out expeditions into the enemy's country. They held the fallacious belief that the people were only deterred by fear of the king from returning to the bosom of their old Church, and that since a period of toleration had been proclaimed they might safely hold services again in the villages that they had lost. It chanced that an old woman from Havelu had lately been reconverted, and she, questioned as to the spiritual attitude of her fellow-villagers, declared that they were only waiting for a favourable opportunity to follow her example. Mr. C— consulted the impetuous Kubu, who told him that there would be no danger in holding services again in Havelu, and upon the following Sunday a chosen band of native teachers rode thither page 154and reopened the long-disused church with a thanks-giving service. In the evening the Free Church held a bolotu, and in the excitement of that inebriating act of worship vowed that they would not again suffer their village to be desecrated by the hosannas of the Fakaongo. Each speaker surpassed the last, until nine fanatics rushed out of the church for their axes and fell upon the Wesleyan church, hacking at the tie-beams until the roof fell in with a crash. The news reached Nukualofa very late on the Sunday night, and before daylight the nine men of action had been haled to the police station, and thrown into the dark cells. Then the fiery Kubu, having had time for reflection, came to me for advice. I called at the mission-house and tried to point a moral. The reverend gentlemen were not a little aghast at the (to them) unexpected result of applying a match to dry gunpowder, and were as anxious as I to repair the damage they had done. The men had been arrested for rioting. They could not be kept in jail, but it would not be politic to let them out without trial. On the other hand, if they were severely punished there would be a new outbreak of indignation against the Fakaongo. I suggested that they should be brought before a magistrate that afternoon, and that Mr. C— should attend to beg them off on condition that they rebuilt the church. He seemed to feel quite a glow of Christian forbearance in anticipation of the lustre that so politic an act would shed upon him. An intimation of the stage arrangements was conveyed to the magistrate. The culprits — the only actors in the scene who had not learned their parts-had been so calmed by nine hours in the dark cells that they were ready to promise page 155anything, and che magnanimity of the Wesleyans in begging them off was not without its effect. A disagreeable crisis was thus averted, but the incident did considerable damage to the cause of the mission.

Church matters were not going smoothly at Vavau. The mayor of a small village took the opportunity of the change of Government to turn Wesleyan, and Manase, the Governor, immediately dismissed him. The right of dismissal of Civil servants, including mayors, is vested only in the Premier, and therefore Manase was obviously exceeding his powers; but being a bigoted Free Churchman, without sufficient brains to see that the Church had now to learn to stand alone without bolstering from the State, he did not stop to think of legality. If Manase's action had been one of intolerance only, I do not think that we should have interfered, for the coveted end of sectarian peace would have been better served by the patient endurance of all present injuries for the sake of allaying the natural irritation of the Free Churchmen at the change in their circumstances; but Manase had wilfully broken the law, and this could not be passed over. Tukuaho wrote to order him to reinstate the mayor: Manase took no notice of the letter. To a stronger command he replied that "it was not his wish that any Fakaongo should hold office," and therefore he could not reinstate him. This was a declaration of war, but the king only had power to dismiss a governor, and he was at Vavau at the time, and more likely to listen to Manase than to his Ministry. News from the distant islands of Niuafoou and Niuatobutabu was equally disquieting. No sooner had Kubu and Sateki set sail than Tuia of the former and the powerful page 156Maatu of the latter island began simultaneously to intimidate the Wesleyans. "Mr. Baker might be gone," they said, "but the church that Tubou set up was still standing, and they, as his deputies, would allow no other within his dominions. As for what Kubu said about toleration, that was a lie. Tubou had not changed." Maatu was reported to have reached Vavau about the time that Manase had declared his defiance of the Ministry, and it seemed not improbable that their false representation to the king would land us in still deeper embarrassments. It was clear that at all hazards we must get hold of the king, or, if we could not persuade him to come to the capital, take it in turns to shepherd him at Vavau. We decided to first send Tukuaho and his father Tungi, on the understanding that they would call at Haapai and persuade Fatafehi to accompany them, since he had the greatest influence with the king. At the last moment Tungi, who is too old for any diplomacy that involves physical exertion, withdrew—as every one had prophesied—and Tukuaho sailed on the 16th of October, undertaking to return in eight days with or without the king.

Two months had now elapsed since my arrival, and, but for the Customs dues, we were still existing upon credit. To retain the wavering loyalty of our Civil servants we had paid them a month's salary, and had given a public assurance that the arrears due to them by our predecessors would be dealt with by Parliament. With the remnant of our slender balance we had paid a quarter of our liabilities to merchants in New Zealand and Sydney—some £1500—so as to restore our credit abroad, but we had now to depend solely upon the arrears of the poll-tax page 157for our current expenses. Before all things I was resolved not to negotiate a loan, and so exchange one set of liabilities for another, besides setting my colleagues a dangerous example which they were sure to follow in future times of financial embarrassment. It was better to make our creditors wait, and silence them by doling out instalments from time to time. I must now make a disgraceful confession. Among the letters in the postmaster's office were a number from firms in England and America which deal in postage stamps, some of which had enclosed considerable sums of money. The Treasury was in dire straits, and a sum of £200 well worth a sacrifice of self-respect. We determined to change our stamps. The change could be effected for £40, and the sale of our old stamps, thus enhanced in value, would bring us in £200 or more. I have since heard that a year later the Government of Costa Rica descended to the same disreputable expedient, but I believe I may fairly take to myself the discredit of being the first to devise the scheme.

Many a time did I curse the complaisancy of Tukuaho in binding his people to pay in copra when they were so ready to pay in coin. Numbers had been turned away from the tax-office with money in their hands, vowing that they would not hire a cart to carry their copra along miry roads for many miles when they could sell it advantageously to the storekeeper in their own village. The main road from the interior branched just opposite our house, one branch leading to the Government copra — sheds and the other to the stores of the traders. At the sound of wheels I used to come out to watch the copra-laden carts reach the turning. If they page 158turned to the left they were loyal subjects of King George, going to pay their just debts to his Government; if they took the straight road on they were traitors and renegades, who loved filthy lucre better than the honour of their country, I tried to guess from the drivers' faces which way they would turn, "Here," I thought, "is a loyalist." The mild-faced, semi-clerical-looking driver left the reins slack on the horse's neck: the cart creaked
"There was an animated discussion."

"There was an animated discussion."

onward. For one moment it seemed to pause as if about to turn off, but it was fancy: the horse did not leave the middle rut, and the driver was a traitor in loyalist clothing after all. Clumsily disguised though, for I used then to remember that he had a cunning expression about the mouth, for all his assumed benevolence. Once a long string of carts going towards the traders so exasperated me that I sent a servant to waylay the next comer, and to tell him to take his freight to the Government stores. page 159The cart stopped, and there was an animated discussion. My envoy was apparently successful, for at last the wheels creaked again, and I saw it crawling down the road to the left. But when I saw the store-books that evening I found that no copra had been received. The man had taken the road to escape my importunity, but as soon as he was out of sight he had diverged along the beach towards the traders' stores.

Through the influence of the Wesleyan missionaries, who were anxious to compare favourably in loyalty with their rivals, a few of the Fakaongo had paid their arrears, but not enough to satisfy the contractor, who was becoming restive as time passed and his prospective profits grew more and more hazy in the distance. He now proposed to lend the Government money, thinking, no doubt, that if he could put us under an obligation to him, we should bring a pressure to bear upon the defaulters more effectual than the mere threat of seizure and sale of their chattels; but we "feared the Greeks even when bringing gifts," and declined. He objected to the issue of writs of distress, thinking rightly that the majority would prefer even that disagreeable formality to a few days' steady work.

The captain of the mail-steamer that arrived about this time put into the hands of the Government a parcel of printed papers, which had been handed to him by Mr Baker for secret conveyance to some of his friends to distribute among the natives. Not wishing to involve himself in the turgid politics of the little kingdom, or to infringe the Customs law, he landed it at the Customhouse like any other parcel of merchandise. It proved to be an ingenious mistranslation in Tongan of the letter of page 160prohibition, the High Commissioner being styled througnout as "the Governor of Fiji," probably in the hope of exciting native jealousies of their despised neighbours interfering in Tongan affairs. As it was doubtless sent to pave the way for more seditious documents, and was designed to further disturb the native mind, a Cabinet Council was summoned to consider the propriety of confiscating the packet. It so happened that Mr. Baker, fearing hostile criticism in the vernacular, had passed an Act that all printed documents should bear an imprimatur, on pain of heavy penalties; and this Act being still in force, the temptation to hoist him with his own petard was too great to be resisted. The packet was accordingly seized and burned with due indignity in the backyard of the police station by Ula, the jailer. From an angry protest in the Auckland 'Star' we learned that our shaft had gone home: at any rate, we were troubled no more with seditious papers.