episode of human beauty, and I dwell on it with satisfaction. But it was
not regarded at the time with universal favour; and even to-day its
institution is thought by many to have been impolitic. It was opened, it
stood open, for the wounded of either party. As a matter of fact it was
never used but by the Mataafas, and the Tamaseses were cared for
exclusively by German doctors. In the progressive decivilisation of the
town, these duties of humanity became thus a ground of quarrel. When the
Mataafa hurt were first brought together after the battle of Matautu, and
some more or less amateur surgeons were dressing wounds on a green by the
wayside, one from the German consulate went by in the road. "Why don't
you let the dogs die?" he asked. "Go to hell," was the rejoinder. Such
were the amenities of Apia. But Becker reserved for himself the extreme
expression of this spirit. On November 7th hostilities began again
between the Samoan armies, and an inconclusive skirmish sent a fresh crop
of wounded to the de Coetlogons. Next door to the consulate, some native
houses and a chapel (now ruinous) stood on a green. Chapel and houses
were certainly Samoan, but the ground was under a land-claim of the
German firm; and de Coetlogon wrote to Becker requesting permission (in
case it should prove necessary) to use these structures for his wounded.
Before an answer came, the hospital was startled by the appearance of a
case of gangrene, and the patient was hastily removed into the chapel. A
rebel laid on German ground--here was an atrocity! The day before his
own relief, November 11th, Becker ordered the man's instant removal. By
his aggressive carriage and singular mixture of violence and cunning, he
had already largely brought about the fall of Brandeis, and forced into
an attitude of hostility the whole non-German population of the islands.
Now, in his last hour of office, by this wanton buffet to his English
colleague, he prepared a continuance of evil days for his successor. If
the object of diplomacy be the organisation of failure in the midst of
hate, he was a great diplomatist. And amongst a certain party on the