Memories Of Mr. Langstone

Something About the Administratorship and History of Distressful Samoa

By R. W. Robson

THE following “letter to the editor,” published in “New Zealand Herald” of January 13, brings to my mind some bitter thoughts and memories;— “I notice Mr. Langstone says the late Mr. Savage offered him the post of Administrator of Samoa. The odd thing is that this post is still open, should Mr.

Fraser think fit to renew Mr. Savage’s offer. The last Administrator was Sir Herbert Hart, whose retirement dates from July 25, 1935, when the Coalition Government was still in office. Mr. A.

C. Turnbull has been Acting-Administra tor ever since—that is, for 11 years. The situation is not fair to him, nor compli mentary to the Samoan people, nor respectful to New Zealand’s Mandate.”

In 1936, I travelled from Wellington, to Western Samoa, in the so-called motor vessel, “Maui Pomare.” Fellow-passen gers were Mr. Langstone, a New Zealand Cabinet Minister, and a New Zealand Parliamentarian, Mr. O’Brien. They were proceeding to the politically restless Mandated Territory of Western Samoa as a “goodwill mission” from the New Zealand Labour Government.

One gets to know people pretty well aboard a small ship. Mr. Langstone and Mr. O’Brien were typical of the products of a so-called democratic system, which are spawned upon the doorstep of Parliaments by political machines. Nei ther had any noticeable claim to repre sent an intelligent community in a coun try’s Parliament. Mr. O’Brien was the better educated of the two —but that sig nified little.

Mr. Langstone interested me very much —I wanted to discover his qualifi cations for his mission. How did this kind of man become a Minister of the Crown? What did he know about the principles of colonial administration?

Above all, what did he know of the peculiar problems of Western Samoa?

Well. I am still wondering. He was so self-assertive and satisfied with himself that most of the men aboard (NZ public servants proceeding to Samoa) were afraid to argue with him. I had only brief conversations with him, and those ended abruptly when, one evening on deck, he made some sneering references to the British Empire, and I ticked him off, in a few plain words of one syllable.

THAT “Goodwill Mission” stumbled around in Samoa for two or three weeks, irritating and antagonising the planters and kowtowing to a hur riedly formed organisation of Eurone sians called “the Samoan Labour Party.”

I have told, more than once, the story of its meddlings and blunderings.

It did only one thing that was of real value to Samoa —it put an end to the apparently endless feud between the Mau and the NZ Government. And it deserves no credit for that. O. F. Nelson was the bete noir of the bone-headed Government that had been displaced by Labour; therefore, of course, O. F. Nel son was treated as a martyr and a hero by the Labour Government. The per secution of Nelson ceased forthwith, and he and his family were sent back to Samoa. I said then, as I say now, that that was a wise and a very shrewd move.

Nelson played the game—he used all his great influence in favour of political peace, and from then until now Samoa has been so tranquil that even the tragedy of 1929 seems to have been forgotten.

The NZ Labour Government certainly put an end to the Nelson-Mau trouble; but it did not do that because Mr. Lang stone loved Mr. Nelson or had any pro found knowledge of Samoan affairs—it happened because NZ Labour was eager to reverse anything done by the previous gang of blunderers —and also because the Government had a most patient and tact ful man in A. C. Turnbull, the Acting Administrator.

Apart from the Mau affair, the effect of Mr. Langstone’s meddling in Samoan affairs was grotesque. I told the New Zealand newspapers something of the story, about 1938—much to the annoy ance of Mr. Langstone and the then Labour Prime Minister, Mr. Savage.

THE disclosure that Mr. Savage offered the Administrator-ship of Samoa Ur Mr. Langstone does not surprise me in the least —it is the kind of tom-fool thing that this kind of Government always does when faced with colonial responsibilities.

It is bad enough to have a Mr. Lang stone as a “Minister of the Crown”—but the New Zealanders elected him, so the New Zealanders have to put up with him.

But why should that class of politician be thrust upon poor, inoffensive, defence less Samoa? I am told that Mr. Lang stone, before he entered Parliament, was the working proprietor of a fried-fish shop somewhere in the North Island.

There is no reproach in that —many of us have had a humble origin. But gentle men who “climb on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things” usually develop the qualities of mentality and leadership which entitle them to that higher grading. Gentlemen who crawl into power through the political machines —we have dozens of the para sites in Australia —rarely develop any new qualities: and I am afraid Mr. Lang stone is in that category.

Imagine the new Administrator of Samoa bringing the intellectual flavours of the King Country fish-shop to Vai lima, once the world-famous residence of Robert Louis Stevenson!

That, however, is past history. What is not past history is the NZ Govern ment’s foul treatment of Mr. A. C. Turn bull. That is a present-day scandal.

Whatever credit these NZ Labour politi cians can take for Samoa’s tranquility is due, in large measure, to the work done by Mr. Turnbull. Yet, for some reason that no one has been able even to guess, Mr. Turnbull has been kept there as Acting Administrator since 1935 —one of the most miserable, discreditable things in the history of Pacific Islands adminis tration. That fact, alone, is sufficient to justify the harshest things that one may say about Minister Langstone.

I always have thought that there is some connection between the grotesque showing made by the “Goodwill Mission” to Samoa in 1936, and the NZ Govern ment’s cruel treatment of Mr. Turnbull.

So far as I could see, Mr. Turnbull and his wife did everything in their power to

make the unfamiliar path easy for the Mission’s blundering feet; but Messrs.

Langstone and O’Brien are of the class of men who would try to lay the blame for their personal failures upon others.

They would not consciously use their official powers against Mr. Turnbull —O dear, no! But if Mr. Turnbull did not displease them, why have they done nothing to remove the anomalies of his position? Or can it be that the Adminis tratorship of Samoa is still being kept open as a comfortable little bolt-hole for some harassed politician?

Is it any wonder that the people of the South Pacific territories, irritated in this fashion by the political freaks of Can berra and Wellington, or paralysed by the dead hands of Dominions’ bureaucra cies, are beginning to look eagerly towards the post-war settlement? Is it possible that, as well as an Atlantic Charter, we may have a Pacific Charter, in which these rich and beautiful terri tories of the South Pacific may be per mitted to govern themselves?