“Prestige”

Samoa Asked To Choose Between Scylla and Charybdis.

[Letter to the Editor] Be just, but above all things he humane ; rule your passions, and you will easily rule the hearts of your subjects. Tour good ex ample will do far more than rigorous enact ments would to make men fulfil their duties.

Be sparing with punishments, generous with rewards, never put off till to-morrow a boon you would confer at once, but postpone the in fliction of punishments till you are absolutely certain they are deserved. (T’ai Tsung’s death-bed counsel to his son. China’s Golden Age, middle of 6th century.) Your correspondent “Dorigo”, in urg ing the transfer of the Samoan Mandate to Britain, presents rather a flattering picture of British administrative ability in contrast to the lack of this particular quality displayed by New Zealand. I agree with “Dorigo” that British prestige ranks high, but submit that prestige denotes just what the word really means —a reputation arising from past con duct. It exists, to-day, only as a pleas ing fiction and delusion in the minds of the official class. Much of the superiority of British administration is balanced many times over by an unflinching in dictment of British mis-rule and defi ciency, and these deficiencies are more worth pondering than any paeans which minister to our pride.

Like their near kinsmen, the Maoris, who earned our respect by indomitable courage, the Samoans are a proud and independent people, totally unlike the races governed through Suva. It is ad mittedly a harder task to govern a free and independent people than one re duced to subservience to a dictator, through the medium of police courts, fines, and imprisonments. Hence the difficulty of New Zealand’s task. It was a misfortune that the administration commenced as a military occupation; it was a criminal blunder to continue to treat Samoa —as evidenced by the choice of successive Administrators—as a con quered province.

Samoa’s choice lies between Scylla and Charybdis. It is not want of sympathy, or lack of righteous indignation at the injustice which has characterised New Zealand’s ineptitude, which prompts the suggestion that in escaping from the Charybdian whirlpool of New Zealand incompetence, Samoa will find the Scylla. of Western Pacific Administration, as unsympathetic and implacable as the Rock of classic fame.

“Whoever mounts the Throne, King, Priest or Prophet, Man alike shall groan.”

It is only on the grounds that it will placate Mr. Nelson (I write with deep respect and admiration for that gentle man’s prolonged fight for justice) and the Samoans who comprise the Mau, that a change can be urged. Under Western Pacific Administration, greater Administrative finesse will doubtless be displayed, but the bonds of thralldom will be just as surely riveted; while the widespread sympathy for Samoa’s wrongs, created largely by the friendly attitude of the New Zealand press, will be lost to her. The very prestige extolled by “Dorigo”, covers a multitude of Western Pacific omissions and commis sions.

“Oh, insolence of strength!

Oh, boast of wisdom!

Oh, poverty in all things truly wise!”

To-day, prestige is merely a tradi tional verbalism, camouflaging a regret table disregard of those sterling and en nobling ideals under which it was nur tured. Although many are wearing the robes, to few has fallen the mantle of those Administrators under whose dis interested efforts to govern wisely and beneficially, this priceless heritage was won. I am, etc.

A. Cowley.

Tonga, May 18, 1933.