(133 pounds); and in those days a supercargo or captain who couldn't make a cargo come up to at least 150 pounds a picul wasn't wanted another voyage by the owners. Trade went on that way until the missionaries found out all about this and other tricks, and told the natives. They never would have suspécted anything if it hadn't been for the missionaries.'
"This man," continued the Doctor, "was no worse than many others in the same line of business; and if all stories are true, he was no worse than many of our forefathers, who made money by their dealings with the savages in the early days of American colonization. The belief that it is no sin to cheat the infidel and heathen is not by any means confined to the followers of Mohammed. It is easy to understand why he was opposed to the missionary labors in the South Seas, as they certainly tended, in his estimation, to the ruin of commerce."
One of the youths asked if this opposition to the Christianizing of the heathen was prevalent among the large mercantile houses, as well as among the small and independent traders.
"It is impossible to answer this question with plain yes or no," was the reply; "but it is safe to say that a very large section of the commercial community of every nation is unfavorable or, at all events, indifferent to missionary enterprises. Even national power is sometimes invoked in the interest of commerce, without regard to the effect upon the heathen. British artillery forced the Chinese to open their markets to the opium of India, and the power of British, French, German, and other arms on the coast of Africa, for purposes of trade, is well known. Even America is not without sin in this respect; American diplomacy, backed by American ships of war, opened the ports of Japan, and the history of our dealings with our own Indians reveals many instances of bloodshed or oppression in the interests of post-traders and other speculators.
"Until its failure a few years ago, the German house of Godefroy & Sons was by far the largest firm or association doing business in the Pacific. It had large fleets of ships, it had branch houses in many parts of the world; in numerous islands of the Pacific its agents were established, and it owned lands and buildings of immense value. In the harbor of Apia, Samoa, they had a ship-yard, where they not only repaired old ships but built new ones, and they owned several excellent harbors in other parts of Polynesia. There was not a single group of islands of any consequence where they were not established, and they had a great influence with the German Government.
