ABSTRACT
In July 1879, the Dutch Consul General for Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania informed his Minister of Foreign Affairs in The Hague about a treaty just concluded between the German Empire and Samoa. With the French in New Caledonia, the British in Fiji and the Germans having obtained for the first time a firm footing in Polynesia, he concluded that a miniature Europe was taking shape in the Pacific. 1 He wrote about developments in the South Pacific in which the lead in European expansion had been taken by adventurers, enterprising individuals and commercial firms, turning to their respective governments to protect their newly acquired wealth and concessions or to assist them in keeping law and order. The ‘civilised powers’ as their statesmen continued to refer to their states, here and elsewhere, became caught up in the machinations of their nationals and consuls abroad, who at times with little scruples and backed by warships and Western firepower strove for local hegemony.
