Brandeis told me himself he was never yet
satisfied with any native judge. And men say (and it seems to fit in
well with his hasty and eager character) that he would legislate by word
of mouth; sometimes forget what he had said; and, on the same question
arising in another province, decide it perhaps otherwise. I gather, on
the whole, our artillery captain was not great in law. Two articles
refer to a matter I must deal with more at length, and rather from the
point of view of the white residents.
The common charge against Brandeis was that of favouring the German firm.
Coming as he did, this was inevitable. Weber had bought Steinberger with
hard cash; that was matter of history. The present government he did not
even require to buy, having founded it by his intrigues, and introduced
the premier to Samoa through the doors of his own office. And the effect
of the initial blunder was kept alive by the chatter of the clerks in bar-
rooms, boasting themselves of the new government and prophesying
annihilation to all rivals. The time of raising a tax is the harvest of
the merchants; it is the time when copra will be made, and must be sold;
and the intention of the German firm, first in the time of Steinberger,
and again in April and May, 1888, with Brandeis, was to seize and handle
the whole operation.
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