I

Lorry-Loads of rocks and coral had been dumped down all along the Beach, and each Saturday afternoon white men laboured in their shirt-sleeves before an audience of Chinese, black-boys (Melanesians), and Samoans, "beautifying the waterfront"—a department of the Administration en masse and the employees of some firm together putting in an appearance according to a schedule drawn up by the Welfare League. When then I returned to Apia again shortly before Christmas, 1923, not long after the death of Charlie Roberts, and stayed at the Central Hotel, these labours—which had commenced during the occasion of my previous visit—had now born fruit: to be seen immediately across the road. There was a solid circle of white coral, near the Clock Tower, that seared one's eyes to look at; hideously angular paths, some of which led nowhere; and a general orderly chaos, quite beyond written conception. To this spectacular end a plan had been prepared by the Survey Office; from which McDonald was retired, the department being now in the charge of a younger man from New Zealand.

The work had not been done entirely by Europeans. Samoans had assisted on at least one occasion. In the Samoa Times of November 16th, for instance, it is said:

"The Renown Sea Scouts did a good turn last Saturday by assisting in the work of beautifying Apia waterfront. Under supervision of Captain W. M. Bell¹ and Scoutmaster A. B. Ross, the corps was divided into groups. One group brought big stones, one earth, one coral, one laid waterpipes, and others engaged in constructional work."

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But beauty, unfortunately, is not achieved without protest; and in the Samoa Times of November 23rd had appeared a letter, in which the writer remarked that in every community were to be found ill-bred persons, such as himself, whose one object in life was carping criticism. He went on to say that to his vulgar mind a stretch of smooth turf properly kept was more worthy than an angular arrangement of painfully rough paths that no one could wish to use, and a "horrid circle of glaring white coral which can have no conceivable purpose save to perpetuate the worst features of smug and stodgy suburbia." That in his eyes a tree whose strong clean trunk had been smothered in a pile of ugly rocks, and so robbed of the simple dignity of nature, was a tree outraged; and an abomination greater even than the philistinian medley in its neighbourhood…. "The present plans of Welfarers," he continued, "are for something quite out of character. They purpose to revive in Apia the horrors of the most formal school of suburban gardening; to set in the South Seas a piece of Clapham—or should I say of Remuera or of Island Bay?"

The writer—Peacock, formerly of Falealili—wound up his letter whimsically by saying that that was the sort of man he was—cowering behind a pen-name and sneering at better men than himself. "Why don't I take off my coat," he asked, "and, with spade or pick, stand about the sea-front on Saturday afternoons like a true Welfarer?" He thought it was disgraceful, he added, that he should be allowed to write to the Press to belittle the work of public-spirited men, and the sooner he and his kind were deported, the better for Samoa.

This elicited a reply from the Welfare League that the deportation of the type of person to which he professed to belong was greatly to be desired. And the Editor of the Samoa Times came out with a leading article in which he contended that the Apia foreshore in front of the Custom-house was greatly improved in appearance. "The League and its many helpers, foremost among whom has been the Administration of Western Samoa, are all deserving of congratulations upon the work that they have achieved on this irregular-shaped plot of bare and broken land."

The Welfare League had been in existence for some time. page 162I find it expressing appreciation of the services of Dr. Trail, the Chief Medical Officer, and regret at his leaving: a resolution to this effect having been forwarded to the Medical Council in New Zealand. And prior to the departure of the late Chief Judge, Mr. Orr-Walker, a highly eulogistic speech was made by the League's President, O. F.-Nelson, who remarked that, despite all that had been said concerning them, the citizens knew a good man when they saw one, and "we are satisfied that some good men come out of Nazareth.". They hoped to obtain for themselves the same measure of British justice that Mr. Orr-Walker had always dispensed in the High Court, and they would keep on nagging until they did get it. They trusted they might be equally fortunate in his successor.

This latest development—the so-called beach beautification—undoubtedly was designed as an earnest (prior to a visit of the Administrator to New Zealand) of the Beach's desire to work in on friendly terms with the New Zealand Administration; and it was perhaps to be regretted that this activity could not have been diverted into another channel. Seated on the veranda of the hotel, looking out over the—to my mind—scene of havoc, I asked idly of the tourist to whom I was talking, an elderly Englishman from the Argentine, what he thought of the beach beautification. He glanced at me. "Of course it's deplorable," he said gravely. "The very worst of bad taste! But there's nothing to be done." He pursed his lips, shook his head, and left the subject.