AS AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY 1897-1903 151 



him to advise his government and people simply to pay 

 their debts. 



It gave me pleasure to learn, somewhat later, that this 

 very prosaic solution of the difficulty had been adopted. 



I make haste to add that nothing which may be said here 

 or elsewhere in these recollections regarding sundry equa 

 torial governments has any reference to our sister repub 

 lics of South America really worthy of the name. No 

 countries were in my time more admirably represented at 

 Berlin than the Argentine Eepublic, Chile, and Brazil. 

 The first-named sent as its minister the most eminent liv 

 ing authority on international law; the second, a gentle 

 man deeply respected for character and ability, whose 

 household was one of the most beautiful and attractive I 

 have ever known ; and the third, a statesman and scholar 

 worthy of the best traditions of his country. 



As to more complicated international matters with 

 which my embassy had to deal, the first to assume a viru 

 lent form was that of the Samoan Islands. 



During the previous twenty-five years the United States, 

 Germany, and Great Britain had seemed to develop equal 

 claims in Samoa. There had been clashes from time to 

 time, in which good sense had generally prevailed; but 

 in one case a cyclone which destroyed the German and 

 American vessels of war in the main port of the islands 

 seemed providential in preventing a worse form of 

 trouble. 



But now the chronic difficulties became acute. In the 

 consuls of the three powers what Bismarck used to call 

 the furor consularis was developed to the highest degree. 

 Yet this was not the worst. Under the Berlin agreement, 

 made some years before, there was a German president of 

 the municipality of Apia with ill-defined powers, and an 

 American chief justice with powers in some respects enor 

 mous, and each of these naturally magnified his office at 

 the expense of the other. To complete the elements of 

 discord, there were two great native parties, each sup 

 porting its candidate for kingship; and behind these, 



