Otto Martin was at this time magistrate in the municipality.The post was held in turn by the three nationalities;Martin had served far beyond his term,and should have been succeeded months before by an American.To make the change it was necessary to hold a meeting of the municipal board,consisting of the three consuls,each backed by an assessor.And for some time these meetings had been evaded or refused by the German consul.As long as it was agreed to continue Martin,Becker had attended regularly;as soon as Sewall indicated a wish for his removal,Becker tacitly suspended the municipality by refusing to appear.This policy was now the more necessary;for if the whole existence of the municipality were a check on the freedom of the new government,it was plainly less so when the power to enforce and punish lay in German hands.For some while back the Malietoa flag had been flown on the municipal building:Becker denies this;I am sorry;my information obliges me to suppose he is in error.Sewall,with post-mortem loyalty to the past,insisted that this flag should be continued.And Becker immediately made his point.He declared,justly enough,that the proposal was hostile,and argued that it was impossible he should attend a meeting under a flag with which his sovereign was at war.Upon one occasion of urgency,he was invited to meet the two other consuls at the British consulate;even this he refused;and for four months the municipality slumbered,Martin still in office.In the month of October,in consequence,the British and American ratepayers announced they would refuse to pay.Becker doubtless rubbed his hands.On Saturday,the 10th,the chief Tamaseu,a Malietoa man of substance and good character,was arrested on a charge of theft believed to be vexatious,and cast by Martin into the municipal prison.He sent to Moors,who was his tenant and owed him money at the time,for bail.Moors applied to Sewall,ranking consul.After some search,Martin was found and refused to consider bail before the Monday morning.Whereupon Sewall demanded the keys from the gaoler,accepted Moors's verbal recognisances,and set Tamaseu free.
Things were now at a deadlock;and Becker astonished every one by agreeing to a meeting on the 14th.It seems he knew what to expect.Writing on the 13th at least,he prophesies that the meeting will be held in vain,that the municipality must lapse,and the government of Tamasese step in.On the 14th,Sewall left his consulate in time,and walked some part of the way to the place of meeting in company with Wilson,the English pro-consul.But he had forgotten a paper,and in an evil hour returned for it alone.
Wilson arrived without him,and Becker broke up the meeting for want of a quorum.There was some unedifying disputation as to whether he had waited ten or twenty minutes,whether he had been officially or unofficially informed by Wilson that Sewall was on the way,whether the statement had been made to himself or to Weber in answer to a question,and whether he had heard Wilson's answer or only Weber's question:all otiose;if he heard the question,he was bound to have waited for the answer;if he heard it not,he should have put it himself;and it was the manifest truth that he rejoiced in his occasion."Sir,"he wrote to Sewall,"I have the honour to inform you that,to my regret,I am obliged to consider the municipal government to be provisionally in abeyance since you have withdrawn your consent to the continuation of Mr.Martin in his position as magistrate,and since you have refused to take part in the meeting of the municipal board agreed to for the purpose of electing a magistrate.The government of the town and district of the municipality rests,as long as the municipality is in abeyance,with the Samoan government.The Samoan government has taken over the administration,and has applied to the commander of the imperial German squadron for assistance in the preservation of good order."This letter was not delivered until 4P.M.By three,sailors had been landed.Already German colours flew over Tamasese's headquarters at Mulinuu,and German guards had occupied the hospital,the German consulate,and the municipal gaol and courthouse,where they stood to arms under the flag of Tamasese.
The same day Sewall wrote to protest.Receiving no reply,he issued on the morrow a proclamation bidding all Americans look to himself alone.On the 26th,he wrote again to Becker,and on the 27th received this genial reply:"Sir,your high favour of the 26th of this month,I give myself the honour of acknowledging.At the same time I acknowledge the receipt of your high favour of the 14th October in reply to my communication of the same date,which contained the information of the suspension of the arrangements for the municipal government."There the correspondence ceased.And on the 18th January came the last step of this irritating intrigue when Tamasese appointed a judge -and the judge proved to be Martin.
Thus was the adventure of the Castle Municipal achieved by Sir Becker the chivalrous.The taxes of Apia,the gaol,the police,all passed into the hands of Tamasese-Brandeis;a German was secured upon the bench;and the German flag might wave over her puppet unquestioned.But there is a law of human nature which diplomatists should be taught at school,and it seems they are not;that men can tolerate bare injustice,but not the combination of injustice and subterfuge.Hence the chequered career of the thimble-rigger.Had the municipality been seized by open force,there might have been complaint,it would not have aroused the same lasting grudge.