G. E. L. Westbrook

Author of “Gods That Die”

Between ms and 1891 Mr. g. e. l.

Westbrook was a traveller and trader In the Pacific —more especially in the Gentral Pacific —and those 13 years were packed full of colourful adventure. After he arrived in Samoa in 1891, Mr. West brook settled down to a less adventurous life; but he always has been more or less in the centre of events, .and as a keen

observer and an industrious recorder, he has justly earned a reputation as a notable writer on Pacific subjects.

Long ago, Mr. Westbrook should have written and published books dealing with his earlier adventures; but it is never too late, and now an American publisher has taken one of his manuscripts, and his first book, “Gods That Die,” will be pub lished in the United Kingdom on Novem ber 25. It is the story of his first 13 years in the Pacific. His innumerable friends will wish him all possible success with the book.

The veteran is now at work on a second book, which mostly tells about the Samoa he has known during his residence there of 45 years. It is to be hoped that Mr.

Westbrook will not allow his naturally strong political feelings to too sharply colour or overshadow what should be a really good story. Mr. Westbrook was a bitter (and as it turned out a well justified) critic of New Zealand in the protracted dispute between the New Zealand Administration and the Mau, and in consequence he was officially classed as a firebrand. The heavy-footed mili tary gentlemen, whom New Zealand sent to govern Samoa, did not understand the Samoans, and they quarrelled haughtily with men like Mr. Westbrook, who does thoroughly appreciate the qualities of the natives and their traditional points of view. If those administrators only had taken more notice of the Westbrooks of Samoa, New Zealand’s record in connec tion with this mandated territory would have been less discreditable.

Naturally, Mr. Westbrook feels very strongly about Samoan politics; but it would be a mistake to let that feeling prejudice a book that should tell a colour ful story of a fa scinating country and which, moreover, should have value as a contribution to history.

Mr. G. E. L. Westbrook.