Rev. R. Bartlett

What He Did in Samoa

MANY residents of Western Samoa will remember the Rev. Reginald Bartlett, of the London Missionary Society, who arrived there in 1929, to become principal of the Theological College at Malua. Mr. Bartlett inter ested himself in Samoan politics and, according to the following lunch-hour address at the Memorial Hall, London, on 9th December last (as reported in The Australian Christian World) he did something towards preventing bloodshed. Samoan residents gener ally will be interested in his story: “Before I had been there long I took a trip round the island. I found that the trouble was seriously interfering with the work of the Church. I wrote a strong letter of protest to the Secre tary of the Mau Council, one of the four kings of Samoa, asking for an opportunity of meeting him. He replied offering a date and I met the Council at 9 o’clock one morning.

“The temperature oi that meeting was rather warm! The leaders felt strongly about my butting into their quarrel. It was no place for a mis sionary, they said. I made it clear that I was not a bit concerned with their quarrel, except as it interfered with the work of the Church. 'Is it the custom when you quarrel in Samoa to turn round and hit your best friend,’

I asked them. ‘The Church in Samoa is your best friend’.

"After a conference lasting three hours they were all my friends except one. My difficulty was that I did not know the language, but I was picking it up as quickly as I could. One of the things I could say in their tongue was ‘my friend.’ I went up to the one and gripped him by the hand so that he could not get away and said, ‘My friend.’ For a long time he would not reply, but I did not release his hand until at last he replied with the same words, ‘my friend.’

“That was on December 21st, 1929.

On December 28th, one week later, the clash came. It was the custom of the Mau to organise an anti-Govern ment procession. The Government had no objection, but issued a warn ing that if any of a number of wanted men made their appearance they would be arrested. A number of wanted men were put in the front of the proces sion. The police stepped forward to arrest them, and in the struggle which followed one of the police and thirteen Samoans were killed. The Govern ment was in difficulties. The police force was small. Samoa is mandated to New Zealand. New Zealand marines were landed with rifles, bayonets and machine guns.

“The Samoans took to the bush.

Practically the whole of the male popu lation went. Every day raiding parties went into the bush and searched for their camps, but among the mountains and forests of Samoa they might have searched for months without ever find ing them. I, too, was hunting for them, but I made my raids by night.

One morning I had just returned to the mission house in Malua to find on my verandah a young man, who gave me greeting and said, 'I want to help you. Every day you go into the bush?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘You cannot find them.’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘l’ll take you to them,’ and he explained that he was a secret messenger employed by the Mau to carry messages from one camp to another. This boy became my guide and every night we went together into the bush.”

Mr. Bartlett and his guide found the camps one by one, but it was a long time before he was able to persuade the leaders to come down and meet the Governor. In the meantime he heard that a battleship was preparing to leave New Zealand with a force of picked and intensively trained men to quell the trouble in Samoa.

“I had a week in which to prevent that ship sailing,” he said, “and still the Mau would not give in. Every night we went up into the bush and on the very eve of the day on which the ship was to sail we were able to take to the Governor at Vailima a dirty piece of paper with the names cf 35 leaders who had all promised to meet him. ‘Will you stop that ship?’ I asked. That ship never sailed, the party of men was dispersed, and peace was made without bloodshed.”