changed if the people were put in the place of the clerics. The Church would then be the expression of the national will to do good, to distribute the best and to please God.

Because the national organisations are so vast, and because association with them is the best check on the growth of party spirit, it is by their means that the best work can be done. The cost involved may at times be great. It may be hard to endure the slow movement of a public body while the majority of that body is being educated; it may be bitter work for the ardent Christian to endure the officialism of a public institution; it may seem wrong that profane hands should mould the Church organisation; but the cost is well endured. The national organisations do exist, and will exist, if not for good then for evil. They are vast, a part of the life of the nation, and the cost which is paid for association with them is the cost of the selfassertion which, if it sometimes is the cause of success, is also the cause of shame.

Further, the other safeguard which it seems to me that all would be wise to remember is that the only test of progress is in the development of character. Institutions, societies, laws, count for nothing unless they tend to make people stronger to choose the good and refuse the evil. Redistribution of wealth would be of little service if in the process many became dishonest. A revolution would be no progress which put one selfish class in the place of another. The test, then, which all must apply to what they are doing, is its effect on character, and this test rigorously applied will make safe all methods both new and old. As it is applied there will be a strange shifting of epithets. Things called 'great' will be seen to be small, and efforts passed by in contempt will be seen to be greatest.

The man in East London who, judged by this test, stands among the highest is one who, belonging to no society, committed to no scheme of reform, has worked out plan after plan till all have been lost in greater plans. Years before the evils lately advertised were known, he had discovered them, and had begun to apply remedies unthought of by the impatient. He has won no name, made no appeal, started no institution, and founded no society, but by him. characters have been made which are the strength of homes in which force is daily gathering for right. The women, too, whose work has borne best fruit are those who, having the enthusiasm of humanity, have had patience to wait while they work. After ten years such women now see families who, by the virtue which has gone out of them, have been raised from squalor to comfort, and are surrounded by girls to whom their friendship has given, in new hopes of womanhood, the best armour against temptation.

That work of these has been great because it has strengthened character, and there are other fields in which like work may be done. Conditions have a large influence on character, and the hardships of life

VOL. XIX. No. 108.

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may be as prejudicial to the growth of character as the luxuries. They, therefore, who work to get good houses and good schools, who provide means of intercourse and high teaching, who increase the comforts of the poor, may also claim to be strengthening character. One I know who by patient service on boards has entirely changed some of the conditions under which 70,000 people have to live. He has never advertised his methods nor collected money for his system, he has simply given up pleasure and holidays to be regular at meetings; he has at his meetings by patience and good-temper won the ear of his fellows, while by his inquiries into details and his thorough mastery of his subject he has won their respect. A change has thus been made on account of which many have more energy, many more comfort, and many more hope.

One other I can remember who, even more unknown and unnoticed, came to live in East London. He gathered a few neighbours together, and gradually in talk opened to them a new use for idle hours. They found such delight in seeing and hearing new things that they told others, and now there are many spending their evenings in ways that increase knowledge, who do so because one man aimed at providing means of intercourse and high teaching.

Those whose aim it is to reform conditions may, as well as those who teach, claim to be strengthening character, but the admission of their claims must depend on the way in which they have worked. They themselves can alone tell how far in pursuit of their aims they have forgotten the effect of their means upon character, and that those means are represented by people whose growth they have helped or hindered. Teachers are not above reformers, and reformers are not above teachers. The people must be taught, and conditions must be changed. It is for those who teach as well as for those who try to change conditions to judge themselves by the effect their methods have on character. If striving and crying they have avoided impatience and allowed time for the growth of originality, if working silently they have indeed done something else than find faults in others' methods, they may be said to have secured the good and avoided the loss.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

SAMOA.

LORD GRANVILLE, when addressing the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament on the relations existing at the present time between foreign Powers and the British Government, pointed out to Lord Salisbury an omission in the Speech from the Throne which he characterised as one he hardly expected.' The omission complained of referred to the rumour that reached England some few days ago that Germany had annexed Samoa. 'I felt sure,' said Lord Granville, 'when I saw the statement, that it was not a fact, or that it had been done by an individual officer, and would be disowned by the German Chancellor. I am glad to learn that that is the case.' The gauntlet thus thrown down was immediately taken up by Lord Salisbury, who said:

I think the noble earl is in error in supposing that there has been, on any hypothesis, any annexation of Samoa by Germany. There have been events which are imperfectly reported, and which strangely never reached the Court of Berlin at all, and we are at present unable to place an exact interpretation on the news which has come to us; but this, which is quite satisfactory, we have received— namely, the most positive assurance on the part of Germany that she will adhere to the treaties in respect to Samoa which already exist.

Rear-Admiral Knorr, who carried out the settlement of the differences between Germany and Zanzibar, and is no stranger to these islands, is now on his way to perform a similar task in Samoa; so we may soon expect to have more accurate information on a subject at present very little understood in England, notwithstanding the fact of its international importance. Meanwhile a sketch from one who has been there and collected the most recent information of the political events that have been taking place in these islands for some time past may not be uninteresting; at any rate, their narration will, I trust, serve to quicken the interest now beginning to be felt by England in Central Polynesia.

It is very commonly imagined by the general public that Samoз is one island. This idea is erroneous. Samoa is the native name of a group of twelve volcanic islands in the South Pacific Ocean, ten of which are inhabited. These islands lie between the parallels of 13° 31' and 14° 11′ 30′′ south latitude, and the meridians of 172° 48′ and 169° 39' 30" west longitude, and are marked on the chart as the 'Navigators,' a name given them by Bougainville, from the skill and

expertness shown by the inhabitants in the use and management of their canoes. They contain between thirty-four and thirty-five

thousand inhabitants.

The discovery of Samoa, according to Dr. Turner, one of the pioneers of the London Missionary Society, is due to the Dutch, who, under Roggewein in 1722, were the first to notice these islands. Forty-six years later they were visited by the French navigator Bougainville, and in 1768 La Pérouse appeared upon the scene. Meanwhile Captain Cook had heard of their existence from the Tongans, and in 1791 H.M.S. 'Pandora' put in an appearance; but it is not till many years afterwards that Samoa begins to play any real part in the political history of the world.

The more important islands of the group are Savaii, Upolu, Tutuila, Ta'u and Manu'a-tele. Savaii, the most westerly, is the largest and contains an area of 700 square miles, which, at a rough estimate, is very nearly equal to ten times that of the Channel Islands. Commodore Wilkes, in his Report of the exploring expedition sent out by the United States Government in 1839 for the purpose of surveying these islands, writes thus:

Savaii is not as populous or as important as several of the other islands. It differs from any of the others in its appearance, for its shore is low, and the ascent thence to the centre is gradual, except where the cones of a few extinct craters are seen. In the middle of the island a peak arises, which is almost continually enveloped in clouds, and is the highest land in the group. On account of these clouds angles could not be taken for determining its height accurately, but it certainly exceeds 4,000 feet. Another marked difference between Savaii and the other large islands is the want of any permanent streams, a circumstance which may be explained, notwithstanding the frequency of rain, by the porous nature of the rock (vesicular lava) of which it is chiefly composed; water, however, gushes out near the shore in copious springs, and when heavy and continued rains have occurred streams are formed in the ravines, but these soon disappear after the rains have ceased. The coral reef attached to this island is interrupted to the south and west, where the surf beats full upon the rocky shore. There are in consequence but few places where boats can land, and only one harbour for ships, that of Mataatua: even this is unsafe from November to February, when the north-westerly gales prevail. The soil is fertile, and was composed, in every part of the island that was visited, of decomposed volcanic rock and vegetable mould.

From this description it will be seen that Savaii, although the largest, is by far the least valuable island of the group commercially or politically.

Upolu, which is separated by twelve miles of sea from Savaii, contains an area of 560 square miles. A range of mountains runs east and west, from which slope down at uncertain intervals a number of smaller ridges that graduate to a low shore, encircled, says Mr. Seed, in his Report to the New Zealand Government 1

This Report was laid before the Australian Convention, 1883, and is embodied in the Victorian and New South Wales Blue Books, which were kindly placed at my disposal by the Hon. James Service, of Melbourne, and the Hon. Bede Dalley, of Sydney.

(dated Custom House, Wellington, 13th of February, 1872'), 'by a coral reef interrupted by channels which form the entrances to safe and convenient anchorages for small vessels. At Apia the reef extends across a good sized bay, thus forming a good and safe harbour for large ships, which is entered through a deep and clear channel formed by a break in the reef.'

Between Savaii and Upolu are the smallest islands Apolima and Manono. The shape of the former is not unlike the human hand with the fingers contracted. Hence its name. The latter, on the contrary, is triangular, and has been somewhat poetically described as 'one entire garden, in looking at which the eye can never tire'; it is three miles in circumference. This island held a very extensive political supremacy over Upolu till the native war of 1847-54, when it lost power and was obliged to rank on a level with those over whom for a long time it had exercised much despotism. We now come to the two uninhabited islands so insignificant as to require no description, while a little distance off is the little island of Nuu-tele, thirty-six miles from which lies Tutuila, an important island containing an area of 240 square miles. The land here is mountainous and ascends in one place to 2,327 feet above the level of the sea. This peak affords a good landmark for vessels making Pangopango harbour, which is not unlikely to play an important part in the future of Samoa.

Let me here give Captain Wakeman's 2 description of Pangopango harbour, which is relied upon by the New Zealand Government as an authoritative source of information.

At daylight, I found myself in the most perfectly land-locked harbour that exists in the Pacific Ocean. In approaching this harbour from the south, either by night or day, the mariner has unmistakable landmarks to conduct him into port: one on the port hand, a high, peaked, conical mountain 2,327 feet high, and on the starboard hand, a flat-topped mountain 1,470 feet in height, which keep sentinel on either hand. These landmarks can never be mistaken by the mariner. The entrance to the harbour is three-quarters of a mile in width between Tower Rock, on the port side, and Breaker Point, on the starboard hand, with soundings of thirty-six fathoms. A little more than one mile from Breaker Point to Goat Island, on the port hand, we open out the inner harbour, which extends one mile west, at a breadth of 3,000 feet abreast of Goat Island to 1,100 feet at the head of the bay, carrying soundings from eighteen fathoms to six fathoms at the head of the bay. The reefs which skirt the shore are from 200 feet to 300 feet wide, almost a

* Captain Wakeman is an experienced master-mariner, who visited Tutuila at the request of a private shipping firm in order to ascertain the suitability of Pangopango harbour for a coaling station. The information was laid before the Australian Convention, 1883, by the New Zealand representative. The trade between Samoa and New Zealand is rapidly increasing, and the merchants of that colony are constantly pointing out to their Government the advantages that would accrue to both if a more intimate connection than at present exists were to be established between the two. They have even hinted at annexation, but this the Samoans do not wish. During the scare last year the New Zealanders were always on the alert and most anxious to aid the mother country in taking over the islands.