No Self-Rule For Manua

These Samoans Want The US To Remain Indefinitely

UNLIKE most Samoans—or, for that matter unlike most native peoples to_day—the Samoans of Manua, American Samoa, do not want self-rule but wish to continue under American Navy jurisdiction and retain their simple Many Samoans live on Tutuila where Pago Pago the naval base is situated, but although perhaps not so sophisti

cated or politically conscious, just as important a section lives in the Manua district, a group of three islands about 65 miles to the east of Tutuila.

The Samoans have been given a large measure of self-government by the United States but the Samoan General Assembly, in October, requested that they should be given still more and that the present Navy government should not be retained for more than ten years. However, the people of Manua disagree with their more politi cally-minded' brothers in Tutuila and prefer to make the period of transition indefinite.

To this end, 36 chiefs have petitioned

President Truman to establish a separ ate government for Manua which will remain under Navy rule after Tutuila has attained self-rule.

The chiefs said in their petition: “We, the leaders of Manua, confess that our people are not ready to accept a radical change in our local government. We know we have no knowledge or experi ence in foreign law-making and Western ideas. The Western world’s ambition and interest in commercial progress are beyond the understanding of our people.

“We are not a commercial-minded people, but rather crave for the pre servation and continuation of our own commonly happy and peaceful life. This is our wish and nothing more.

“A change will, in our opinion, even tually arrive, and we hope for our foreign-educated youths to be the cap tain of our ship at such an hour.’’

THE New Zealand Government, which holds the trusteeship of Western Samoa, has gone a long way to meeting the Western Samoans desire for self-government. A Trusteeship Council committee visited Western Samoa about 18 months ago to investigate the claims of the Samoans for independence, but before the committee had had time to release its recommendations, the New Zealand Government hastily gave Western Samoa a larger measure of in dependent government than ever dreamed of in the thirties, anticipating the suggestions put forward subsequently by the Trusteeship Council which was not in favour of immediate inde pendence.

Although there is a certain agitation for self-government in American Samoa —at least in Tutuila —it is surprising that there is no apparent desire on the part of the Samoans of Eastern Samoa

to join Western Samoa in forming a Samoan nation. The fact that the present political division is European made and dates only from 1899, when Western Samoa became German terri tory and Eastern Samoa went to the United States, makes it the more puzzling.

The Western Samoans, no doubt, would welcome the American Samoans to their fold. The American Samoans, no doubt, with a thought to the feuds and petty wars of old Samoa, prefer to remain under the wing of the United States for the present, anct give the Western Samoan experiment ample time to work itself out, one way or the other.