The judgment was afterwards reversed in Fiji; but even at the time it had
not satisfied the Germans. And so now, on the third day of martial law,
the paper was suppressed. Here we have another of these international
obscurities. To Fritze the step seemed natural and obvious; for Anglo-
Saxons it was a hand laid upon the altar; and the month was scarce out
before the voice of Senator Frye announced to his colleagues that free
speech had been suppressed in Samoa.
Perhaps we must seek some similar explanation for Fritze's short-lived
code, published and withdrawn the next day, the 23rd. Fritze himself was
in no humour for extremities. He was much in the position of a
lieutenant who should perceive his captain urging the ship upon the
rocks. It is plain he had lost all confidence in his commanding officer
"upon the legal side"; and we find him writing home with anxious candour.
He had understood that martial law implied military possession; he was in
military possession of nothing but his ship, and shrewdly suspected that
his martial jurisdiction should be confined within the same limits. "As
a matter of fact," he writes, "we do not occupy the territory, and cannot
give foreigners the necessary protection, because Mataafa and his people
can at any moment forcibly interrupt me in my jurisdiction.
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