Romantic History Of E. W. Gurr.

Man Who Fought for Samoan Freedom.

THE well-known resident of Samoa, Edwin William Gurr, who died in Pago Pago naval hospital on July 1, although born in Tasmania, had grown to manhood in New Zealand, and had there qualified as a schoolteacher.

Because he held the title of “Judge”

Gurr, from an American source, he has been referred to as an American; but he was really a New Zealander, and in his early days in Samoa he fought hard to secure New Zealand influence in support of the cause of Samoan freedom. It, therefore, was a curious turn of fate that in his later years he was regarded as an enemy of New Zealand.

Mr. Gurr went from New Zealand to Samoa in his early twenties, to enter the banking business. We take the following particulars of his interesting career from a striking biography written by Mr.

Percy Andrew, of Auckland. Mr. Andrew, needless to say, has strong Mau sym pathies.

Mr. Gurr arrived over 40 years ago to find Samoa the object of intrigue and plotting between the consuls and nat ionals of the three great Powers (Britain, Germany and United States), all eager to despoil these happy isles, and he was soon found on the side of the Samoans.

There were three white men whom the Samoans have to thank for foiling the repeated attempts to rob them of their country—E. W. Gurr, R. L. Stevenson, and Wm. Cooper. R.L.S. lies in his grave at the top of Mount Vaea; Judge Gurr rests at Tutuila; and William Cooper still lives in Auckland, where, sightless and very aged, he still follows with deep sympathy and interest the prolonged struggle of the Samoans for freedom.

R.L.S. was invaluable with his fiery let ters to the London “Times,” while Messrs. Gurr and Cooper (a brother of the late Sir Theo. Cooper) provided Tusitala with the ammuntion for his ruthless exposures of the plotting against the Samoans.

When the three Powers abandoned all plans to subdivide Samoa, and signed the Treaty of Berlin guaranteeing the Samoans their independence, neutrality and autonomy, a Land Commission was set up to dispose of all claims to land in Samoa. It was then found that the foreigners were claiming ownership of far more land than ever existed in the whole Samoan archipelago. Henry Clay Ide, afterwards a famous American am bassador, was the first President of the Land Commission, Eggert was the Ger man representative, and Michael Hag gard (brother of Sir Rider Haggard) the English representative. E. W. Gurr was appointed to represent the Samoans on the Commission, and, thanks to his un ceasing resistance to the land-grabbers, only a small portion of the lands claimed was alienated from the natives. Had Misi Kea (Mr. Gurr) been self-seeking and unscrupulous he could have fattened his friends and feathered his own nest, but he was the soul of honour and in tegrity, and died as he had lived, poor in this world’s goods but rich in the un shaken love and faith of the Samoans.

When the three Powers mutually agreed to dissolve the Tripartite protec tion, and Britain withdrew, Mr. Gurr did not choose to live under the German regime in Western Samoa, and went across to Tutuila with his Samoan wife

to settle there. The American authorities at once enlisted his services to assist in the new job of assuming a protectorship over Eastern Samoa. He was made Chief Judge of the Supreme Court, and also Secretary for Native Affairs; offices he held with distinction for eight years, during which time he codified the native laws of the territory.

From the time oi his retirement from the Supreme Court bench in 1908 until 1924, Judge Gurr lived on his plantation at Maloata until 1924, when he returned to Western Samoa. Here he found an army of officials, planning to revolution ise the social and economic system of the Samoans, which had stood the tests of so many centuries, and was the only natural one for them to follow. The na five lands were to be individualised;

marriages in Samoan fashion were not to be recognised! “model” villages with town-planning, and all modern conveni ences of European “culture” were to be instituted.

No white man has ever known the mind of the Samoans as intimately and sympathetically as Judge Gurr, and he was to them what Judge Maning was to the Maoris of North Auckland —their guide, philosopher and friend. From this insight into Samoan psychology, the dangers of meddling with the communal land system, marriage customs, and con trol of the villages were obvious to his trained mind. When the Hon. O. F.

Nelson arrived back in Apia in 1926 and announced that the New Zealand Gov ernment was going to straighten up the mess that had been made in Samoa, Judge Gurr joined heart and soul in the work of the Citizens’ Committee. He was the foundation editor of the “Samoa Guardian.” For these activities he was deported by General Richardson for five years in 1928.

For many years Judge Gurr had suf

fered ill-health, having contracted the dreaded filaria (mumu or elephantiasis) in his early days in Samoa. When he settled in Tutuila a medical commission of international experts in tropical dis eases visited Samoa to investigate the disease, and it is typical of Judge Gurr that he willingly offered himself as an experimental medium for testing the effects of possible cures. The disease had been tracked to the germ-carrying mos quito: the problem was to find a cure for the filaria, with its painful recurring attacks. The doctors warned the Judge that some of the poisonous remedies tried might kill instead of cure him, but his only reply was a laugh and an in junction to “Go ahead and fire away.”

He would always jokingly describe some of the tortures he voluntarily submitted to, and how the experts could find no cure, but discovered an enormous num ber of things which would not cure ele phantiasis, and proved it on him!

When deported in 1928, Judge Gurr wished to return to his plantation and home in Tutuila, but he was advised that as America wished to avoid friction with New Zealand, his return to American Samoa could not be approved, and he

was forced to go to New Zealand, where the climate proved very aggravating to the complaint which afflicted him. He bore his exile with courage and fortitude.

Towards the end of last year, just as his term of exile was expiring, the Judge’s health began to fail rapidly, and a period in the Auckland hospital with expert examination held very little hope of permanent recovery. When he joined Mr. Nelson on the return from exile, he had to be taken on board from a sick bed. He survived to reach his loved Samoa once more, and find his final rest in the soil he fought so nobly to keep forever Samoan.