Political Conditions In Samoa

From Two Points of View

Letter to the Editor

THE Annual Report of the Mandatory Power, New Zealand, to the League of Nations, dealing with the Western Samoa affairs, for the year ended March 31, 1934, was presented to the New Zealand Parliament in September. It has been sent to Geneva for discussion by the Permanent Mandates Commission in October-November.

The political situation in Samoa is re ferred to in the report, as follows: “The political situation at the commencement of the period under review was perfectly quiet.

Since May, 1932, there had not been any Court proceedings or convictions for offences arising out of the political agitation. Mr. O. F. Nelson, who, pursuant to an Order made in December, 1927, was deported for a term of five years, returned in May, 1933; immediately thereafter political agitation revived. It grew in strength until early Novem ber, when two parties of Samoans undertook a tour of the Territory to appoint Mau officials, collect Mau taxes, and, in fact, to set up a new form of Government.

“Acting under a warrant issued by the Court, a search was carried out at the residence of O.

F. Nelson. A large quantity of incriminating documents were found there, including a “Bud get” for the Mau and a document styled “The First Proclamation of the Mau,” the latter providing for a constitution, the appointment of officials and their duties, also instructions for the two parties then setting out to put these plans into operation. Fourteen members of the two parties were arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to terms of imprisonment, varying from three weeks to one year. O. F. Nelson was also arrested, and, after a trial lasting thirty-two days, was found guilty and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment and ten years’ exile. On the Bth day of March, he was sent to New Zealand to serve his sentence, and there was no further trouble.

“Throughout the year the Administration functioned normally and smoothly, though this would not have continued if action against Mr. Nelson had not been taken. (The sentence of eight months’ imprisonment subsequently was quashed, on appeal.) At Mr. Nelson’s trial referred to, he conducted his own case, and of the 32 days of the trial, 21 were taken up in the defendant’s cross-examining of Inspector A. L. Braisby, Chief Police Officer of the Mandated Territory, who was the Informant, and principal witness for the prosecution. Among other things, Inspector Braisby, in his answers to the questions put to him by the defendant, in effect, stated: 1. That the Defendant (Mr. Nelson) was a man of great business ability, with the highest commercial reputation in Samoa and abroad, and of excellent private character, who has always taken an active part in promoting the social and political interests of the people of Samoa, and since 1922, after a trip to Europe, has made that his life’s work. 2. That the Defendant’s policy has always been peaceful, and that the leaders of the Mau strictly followed that policy throughout, by his influence; that the Defendant was the senior elected member of the Legislative Council for the second term, at the time of his first deportation. 3. That though the Mau seemed quiescent after the tragedy of December, 1927, and the promulgation of the “Samoa Seditious Organisations Regulations, 1930,” and though convictions for political offences and the non-payment of the old poll-tax were reduced from some 1800 in 1928 to nil in 1932, the Mau held big fonos (meetings) for Mau purposes during the whole of the period the defendant was in exile, and in one of the said fonos in August, 1932, the Mau collected £90 for Mau purposes. 4. That with the exception of the malaga party from Savaii to hold fono with the representatives of Upolu as to whether the Mau should

meet the Administrator, for which a police permit was issued, the whole of those Mau fonos were breaches of the “Samoa Seditious Organisations Regulations, 1930,” and the Police could easily have kept the convictions for Mau offences at 1800 per annum and higher, if the Police had taken action. 5. That the strength of the white police was in creased to 52 in April, 1930, and thereafter gradually reduced to 20 in January, 1933, and to 17 in April, 1933, the month before the defendant’s return to Samoa, and to 12 during Defendant’s stay in Samoa, till the day he was sent away to serve his term of imprisonment and exile in New Zealand in March, 1934.

The recent announcement that Chief Judge Luxford, who is returning to New Zealand, is not to be replaced by a resident Judge, but by an itinerant Judge, to visit Samoa two or three times a year, concludes with the suggestion that this “is also evidence of the quieter conditions prevailing there.” There are, of course, a few Commissioners of the High Court resident in Samoa with judicial powers about equal to those of a magistrate in New Zealand, so the High Court will not necessarily close down.

Authoritative reports disclose that the Mau continued to remain strongly in evidence in their headquarters in Vaimoso, holding fonos, as usual, after Mr. Nelson was sent away, and at a special fono towards the end of August, 1934, the Mau delegates were commissioned to return to their homes; to inspect the agencies and committees of the Mau in the villages and

districts; to convey to them, personally, and to the people as a whole, the latest resolutions of the Mau Executive; to collect Man funds; and to report again at Vaimoso before the end of September, 1934. where they shall remain, to await the pleasure of the Administrator for a fono, and to hold fonos for the maintenance of the organic system of the Samoans, so that the proud position ad mitted in the annual report that “poverty cannot exist” shall continue.

It is further reported that one of the principal items of the commission to the Mau delegates, while in their homes, is to consolidate that very work for which the malaga parties were arrested in November, 1833.

It is also stated that the Mau are ever ready to discuss with the Administrator their enumerated complaints, and to continue the fono held before the Administrator left for New Zealand in April, 1934; that the Mau will continue their work for

the Samoans until an amicable settle ment with the Government is arrived at, and will unresistingly submit to police action, and avoid a clash at any price; and that the Samoans deplore the fact that the Police prefer to wait for Mr. Nel son’s return to Samoa to make arrests, so as to lay on him the blame for the con tinued unrest, but that “this method only tends to increase the respect and regard of the Samoans for their most revered High Chief Taisi, Mr. O. F. Nelson, who is again paying the penalty for the per sistence of the Samoans for a proper hearing and redress of their grievances.”

P. B. Fitzherbert,

(Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand).

Wellington, N.Z., September 20, 1934.