West Samoa's Europeans

The Bumpy Road to Samoan Self-Government

Are In A Dilemma

At end of June it still appeared that European residents of^tern ™’s insistence that they take Samoan nationality.

ERE is strong objection by European electors to -he new election These re j them to become Samoan ms and swear an oath of iance before they can exercise • voting rights. iropeans held the view that they id not be compelled • old nationality and become oan, because the new State of tern’ Samoa does not at present . . spite of desperate efforts and ated postponements of tne sing date for nomination of candidates, con :ably less than half the potential mean electors (some 500 out of )) have enrolled, and cmly tnree iidates have been nominated ind of the ten provided for. tie Samoans, on their part, nelv objected to candidates havto put up a deposit of £lO which be forfeited if they do not ree the required number of votes. consequence, the clauses reqmrdeposits, have been hastily withwn , he UN Trusteeship Council durthe debates on Western Samoa May polled ° u t that negotmis for a treaty of friendship or treaty governing the future re onship between New Zealand I Western Samoa, should not take wdS K s b h e e Ca^a|s

SS an«t conclude

a A tie s S imia h r n a go%hich e fXwfnf ?he declara-

tion * co-" p ration wi th Belgium). fa(jt that Wes tern Samoa still * is a Trusteeship Territory nprrnd -o the argument that the de

j^ and that political and particularly

voting rights should be exercised only a fter adoption of Samoan citizen ship, is quite wrong.

State Does Not exist It is di fncult to understand why neonle are requested to become £ itizens of a state not yet in being in fact i ong before it becomes an state. Neither the con stitution nor the basic laws of the prospective new State have been de termined. under these circumstances it is no j. Pe W ondered at that a majority of the European voters re fuse enrolment on the new electoral roll> and that this majority includes t he more prominent local-born Europeans who prefer to retain their New Zealand, British, American or other national status in preference to t he uncertainties involved in accepting Samoan citizenship, . Mata I System Samoan elections of an dditional three representatives for of the 41 Samoan electoral dis 4. 1 dc + ;s (f o r the Constitutional Con vention) are to take place in -ve active and ship Council during the latter’s last

session in May, to induce the Samoans to adopt universal suffrage.

They have, however, agreed to universal suffrage for the referen dum next year which is the legal instrument of terminating the Trusteeship Agreement. .

And, as far as it goes, this is an encouraging sign. It may indicate that at some future stage universal suffrage will be introduced in Western Samoa, particularly as some prominent leaders of the Samoan people have expressed themselves in favour of it—notably the present Prime Minister of Western Samoa, the Hon. Fiame Mata’afa.

The closing of the Samoan and European electoral rolls and the closing date for nominations fo r candidates for the Constitutional Convention, have been postponed twice by the Government in order to persuade potential electors to

enroll. But it seems certain that the final number of registered voters will fall far short of the number registered on the 1957 roll, and that the number of European candidates will be smaller than the ten repre sentatives permitted.

From the point of view of Euro pean residents it would be most re grettable if there were no adequate European representation at the Convention. It is important that, even if European representatives constitute only a small minority at the Convention, European interests be safeguarded and that any objec tions to certain clauses of the pro posed Constitution, which might affect Europeans adversely, be placed on record.