Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1889 — The Samoan Treaty. [ARTICLE]

The Samoan Treaty.

The conclusion of the Berlin Conference on Samoan affairs is hailed as eminently satisfactory from the American standpoint. The only particular in which our representatives do not appear to have secured what they were disposed to insist, npnn was with regard to the indemnity claimed for the destruction of German life and property fSS- disturhahces last December on the islands. The demand of the German Commissioners was heavy enough to seriously embarrass the natives, but this our agents would not concede, and the amount was reduced so as to be nominal merely. Jt ought to be nothing at all. The Samoans certainly had beligerent rights and thO Germans should bear losses which they brought upon themselves. Ono gratifying feature of the treaty is that it secures governmental autonomy to tho natives and obviates the need of any extended interference on our part in affairs with which it was a blunder for us ever to have had anything to do. There is to be an advisory council, composed of representatives of the United States, Germany and England, the Englishman only to have a vote in case of disagreement between the two others. Malietoa Ls to be reinstated and a constitutional form of government provided for him to preside over. Courts for the settlement of land questions are to be established. No foreign power is to predominate. ~ 1

■* Let us hope that the matter is now ended, and that it will be the last time this great big Republic is inveigled by insignificant, busy bodies into bothering itself in an international controversy about a little patch of land mom than five thousand mites away in Polynesia and peopled by a small lot of more or less naked savages.—New York World. >