I

After seeing the Administrator's party at its starting-point in Savaii, I proceeded immediately on leave to Apia. It was now that I stayed at the Government hotel; where, as I have already mentioned, lived the man with the brewery in his wardrobe. During this visit to Apia the Inspector of Police, with whom I used to practise revolver-shooting when living at Vaiala, invited me to accompany him on a ride along the coast in the direction of Mulifanua, in pursuit of two prisoners—a half-caste and a Chinaman—who had escaped from the jail. Instructions were to bring them back alive or dead. It was believed they would make for Savaii. The half-caste was one of a gang who had recently stolen a large auxiliary ketch and got as far as Tonga, from whence they had been brought back. There had been another escapade of this sort shortly before, entailing the loss of the boat and the probable loss of two lives. (Two of the half-castes concerned landed at Funafuti in a dinghy, where they were arrested by Captain Allen, but the fate of their companions and the motor-boat remained a mystery.) Both incidents, I believe, were without precedent. We overran our quarry, but the native police who were following us got them. I mention the ride only because I was now to see that the lovely coral beaches before the native villages along the coast of Upolu were defaced above high-water mark with scores of crude, and for the most part useless, privies, constructed of all sorts of junk, such as pieces of old soap-boxes. Many of them obviously had not been built for use, since their height from the ground and extraordinary shape would entirely have precluded human entry. None the less, they bristled beneath or before the palms in front of every village by the dozen, and constituted a hideous blot upon the island scenery.

The Samoan is regular in his personal habits, and it is his custom, where he lives by the coast, to go to the beach at day-break each morning and deposit his faeces below high-water mark. When the tide is full he will wade out into the sea. With those villages inland or atop of cliffs, he scales the pig-fence at the back of the village and goes off into the bush. This state of affairs is possibly not ideal—and where there is excessive feasting there will even be irregularities—but it is difficult, apart from the building of communal latrines by the Government, to see how to effect any satisfactory improvement. The Administrator's decree that each family must provide itself with a privy was certainly no solution of the problem. Had these preposterous places, or pretended drop-privies, been used, it would simply have led to the depositing and exposure of the excrement above high-water mark. This was the wonderful "sanitary control" that was advertised to the world and the League of Nations.

In the Samoa Report of 1927–28—after the native unrest arose—it is stated:

"… worse still, owing to their action nearly all the sanitary control in the various villages has been lost. This means that a very large proportion of the villages in Upolu and Savaii have gone back to the conditions existing before sanitation was introduced and enforced by Government officials…. It is remarkable that the health of the natives should have suffered so little."

There never was any sanitary control, other than the fiasco I have mentioned, save for a few latrines presented one to each Faipule by the Administration; but in some cases these were not erected but were allowed to lie and rot, as I could quote documentary evidence to prove. A photograph of a proper latrine, I must admit, was included in The Samoa Annual Report, 1926–27.

II

In September 1924 the Health Inspector—who had been a plumber in New Zealand—travelled round Savaii in the cause of sanitation. The results of his labours struck me as being not only ludicrous but, from the viewpoint of an official of that page 186island, humiliating. Privies in many instances were erected on the crown of the beach consisting of three or four coconut-fronds thrust into the sand and knotted together at the top. This apparently was considered satisfactory, although it was obvious that the first high wind must blow them down. Orders, having been given, should at least have been enforced, more especially as the Health Inspector wholeheartedly approved of the new "system."

III

Whatever impression he may have made upon the natives during his tour of Savaii in 1924—and of that I shall have something to say—it would be idle to pretend that General Richardson had made a favourable impression upon the Europeans, most of whom, of course, were traders. I have already mentioned Ross, the storekeeper of Faiaai, who lent his buggy to the natives when the woman of Foa lay dying. Not only did he lend his buggy during the Administrator's visit to his village—a pleasant grassy place atop of a cliff overlooking the sea—but also nearly all the chairs from the living-quarters of his store, for the people of Faiaai had been hard put to find seating accommodation for so many Europeans. This he did, as would practically any other trader where the Government party was stopping, simply as a matter of course. He had, Ross told me, no particular desire to meet the Administrator, but when specially summoned by the Aide-de-Camp to accompany him for that purpose, he went along. According to his account, the interview consisted of a few perfunctory and bombastic remarks addressed to him by the Administrator between intervals of loudly applauding some native girls playing basketball—a game General Richardson was seeking to introduce among the Samoans. He was not asked into a house, or to be seated. As in the native fales about him were European officials sprawling in his own chairs, this conceivably may have been annoying. Anyway, he, in common with many other traders, was wont to express himself somewhat strongly from now on, on the subject of certain of the higher officials.

In violent contrast were the methods of the German page 187Governor, Dr. Solf. He almost invariably would call upon the trader; and, if the trader were at all a decent fellow, was not above sitting down with him to a meal. The traders of course were appreciative of this treatment, and were strong partisans of the Government. Their influence upon the Samoans is not inconsiderable. From a trader's conversation, too, one may get a side-light upon native affairs—for they know all the news of their locality—that is not to be obtained in any other way. The respect with which Dr. Solf's name is still mentioned shows plainly that his policy cost him no caste in this direction. Nor do the natives think the worse of Europeans for treating each other with consideration and respect.

IV

In the east of Savaii, where I shortly accompanied the Director of Agriculture on his annual inspection, we found rumours were strong that the Administrator on this malanga, in the course of speeches, had warned the natives against the traders, telling them that they were their enemies. Supposing such statements to have been made—and there is corroborative testimony to that effect—and even allowing them to be true, it would be impossible to condemn the folly of them sufficiently in a country where the Europeans were so greatly out-numbered by the native population.

V

The impression made on the Savaiians generally by the Administrator, I think, was not unfavourable. They were impressed by his high military rank. They had, of course, already met him in 1923. On this latest malanga, however, he seems to have made them various promises which were not fulfilled; which cannot in the long run have redounded to his credit. At Falealupo, for instance, the chiefs asked me when the Administrator was going to send them the cart and horse that he had promised, on seeing the long road by which they brought their food-stuffs from the plantations. I could scarcely credit that such a promise had been made; but my interpreter page 188assured me that he too had been present and had heard it. I replied that if the promise had been made I had no doubt that in due course it would be fulfilled. It never was. This was typical of incidents in one or two other villages.

VI

Against the advice of the Director of Agriculture, the Administrator had insisted that the Samoans were to be introduced to cotton-planting. Accordingly, seed was distributed free and a lot of propaganda put out to that end during 1924. In my own district I tried to impress upon the people that this was in the nature of an experiment, and to approach it with caution; for I feared that an almost inevitable disappointment would react unfavourably upon the established branches of our work. This crop is by no means a suitable one for Samoans; since it requires harvesting at a precise time—being liable to damage by rain—and that a people such as we were dealing with might find themselves unwilling or unable to do. The natives, however, generally were fairly ready to have a go at cotton-planting—being intrigued by any new thing—although I remember one Matai remarking with mock pathos that they soon would all be dead with all the work that the Government now required of them: a sally which was greeted with much appreciative laughter by the other chiefs and orators assembled. It was indeed a fact that orders were beginning to be issued to the Samoans now, thick and fast.

The total amount of cotton produced in Samoa in 1925 was negligible. It never rose to anything not trivial. No longer helped by a subsidy—which induced a few Europeans to take it up—the industry I presume has died a natural economic death. The working of the abandoned rubber-plantations in Upolu—on which the Administrator, again against competent advice, also was to insist—later involved the Government in severe loss. "On plantations devoted solely to rubber-production," said the New Zealand Public Service experts in their report of January 1929, "the financial results to date are distressing."

Another earlier idea of General Richardson's, I remember, page 189was that the District Inspectors should busy themselves by castrating the surplus native stallions and bulls. Certain implements were imported to this end. Like many other of his schemes, it was a flash in the pan, although I believe his son—a youth—actually did demonstrate the art among the natives in Upolu: in my opinion anything but a politic move. I agree that the work was an important one, but it called for the services of a Stock Inspector.

VII

In January 1925, my services having, after two months' notice and for "the reason that they were no longer required," been dispensed with, I started trading for a merchant, Mr. Jensen, at Falelima, in the district where I had recently been an official. It was during this year, I suppose, that the Faipule system, as now constituted, may be considered to have come to its full flower. But before proceeding to that I should record that towards the end of 1924 a party of Faipules under the tutelage of Mr. Griffin, the Secretary of Native Affairs, paid a visit to New Zealand. Sir Maui Pomare, a member of the New Zealand Cabinet, who then made their acquaintance, pronounced the Faipules in 1927 "an absolutely worthless body." Another party of Faipules, either in 1924 or 1925, visited Tonga.

In the Samoa Report for the year ending March 31, 1925, after telling of the visit of the Faipules to New Zealand, the Administrator observes with apparent satisfaction: "From the reports which each rendered to me on his return, their tour to New Zealand has resulted in—less respect for the communal system, particularly as regards land-development." This, I have little doubt, was precisely what he had required.

VIII

A remarkable development of the Faipule system, as I have indicated, manifested itself during 1925. This was the setting up of special tribunals or boards of Faipules endowed with what amounted practically to judicial powers. It was here, of course, that the want of a strong Chief Justice was felt, who page 190would speedily have put a stop to this sort of thing. These boards of Faipules would call a Samoan before them, without, it was alleged, stating any reasons. Then—I will quote from the wording of a Samoan petition to the League of Nations—"they simply told him what they had decided to recommend and gave him no opportunity to bring witnesses or ask questions. As a rule no witnesses were produced against him. He Was condemned on mere partisan hearsay." These "recommendations" might be, and often were, to the effect that the native should be deprived of his chiefly title and banished from his home and district; which the Administrator, being now "satisfied," was at liberty, under the terms of the Samoan Offenders Ordinance, to put in force. The "offence" perhaps was something appertaining to sedition, or, in other words, having ventured to criticize or desired time to consider some half-baked scheme: a state of affairs which argued—as averred in the petition—tale-bearing and espionage. But it was claimed, over and above this, that these powers were also used by the Faipules on occasion to work off personal spites and feuds of old standing. The whole business, it must be obvious, was the logical outcome and development of the "not doing his duty" suggestion, made to the Faipules by the Administrator in 1924. Dozens of chiefs were dealt with in this way and banished before the native unrest finally arose.

IX

According to the Samoa Times of May 29, 1925, the Administrator, at the half-yearly Faipule Fono, preached this creed, which no doubt will excite the interest of philosophers:

"Samoa is now starting to progress. The needs of the people are increasing. You know that your needs and your progress cannot be provided without money. There is no gold in the rocks of Samoa, but the products of your land can be turned into money which will give you all that you require. Your plantations must be made to grow not only your food but those things from which alone you can get money. Only those products which you send to other countries can you turn into money. Every pound of copra, cocoa, cotton, sent away in ships brings page break

A Native Plantation

page 191money back to Samoa, but those things you consume locally do not make Samoa any richer; therefore, year by year strive your best to produce and plant more coco-nuts, more cocoa, and more cotton. If you do these things all your troubles will disappear.

"But Samoa will never progress until a change is made in the Native system of land ownership. The present system must be changed to individual holdings…."

The Administrator's endeavour to alter the communal land system was on a par with most of his other innovations. The lands in question were vested in the names of the various Matai or heads of families, and used for the benefit of the respective families. (Thus those who were deprived of their titles might also be permanently divested of their agrarian rights, by the title being presented in the meantime to another.) To individualize the land was to rob the chiefs and orators of their last vestige of authority, and would have entailed the overthrow of the whole social machine. What possible justification was there for the risk there involved?

The old system of land tenure had worked very well from time immemorial. The people were happy. Poverty and want were unknown. Who then, knowing the humiliation, frustration, and agony of mind, to say nothing of hardship, that shortage of money with us can entail, would beneficently think to convert these people to an individualistic and monetary system?

However, lest I be considered biased, I will give the missionary angle:

"This communistic system is a sad hindrance to the industrious, and eats like a canker-worm at the roots of individual or national progress. No matter how hard a young man may be disposed to work, he cannot keep his earnings: all soon passes out of his hands into the common circulating currency of the clan to which all have a latent right. The only thing which reconciles one to bear with it until it gives place to the individual independence of more advanced civilization, is the fact that, with such a state of things, no 'poor laws' are needed. The sick, the aged, the blind, the lame, and even the vagrant, has always a house and a home, and food and raiment, as far as he con-page 192siders he needs it. A stranger may, at first sight, think a Samoan one of the poorest of the poor, and yet he may live ten years with that Samoan and not be able to make him understand what poverty really is, in the European sense of the word. 'How is it?' he will always say. 'No food! Has he no friends? No house to live in! Where did he grow? Are there no houses belonging to his friends? Have the people there no love for each other?'"¹

Nothing in the foregoing passage alters my opinion that it was a retrogressive move to attempt to alter the existing system. And even if the power of the chiefs and consanguine collectivism had been replaced by individualism and an aristocracy of General Richardson's own creation, I do not believe for a moment that it would have increased production.

X

On King's Birthday, 1925, the Administrator was honoured with a knighthood; and soon afterwards he set out on his annual inspection of Savaii. I watched with appreciation, while in no way responsible, the way in which the natives of the isolated village where I was trading, Falelima, made preparation for his visit. It was almost as if they were laying themselves out to humour a child.

First they procured some red cloth from a distant store—I had none—from which they made lava-lavas and fezzes. The latter they decorated with five-pointed stars cut from tobaccotins which they had begged from me. Then they requested me to teach them to salute with guns. To the best of my ability I instructed one of them in presenting arms: a relic of some months of military training. That having been acquired, they hastily erected a number of temporary privies on the beach: where there had previously been only that which was on my property. All was now ready.

The main Government party made no stop at Falelima—indeed they went through it, in due course, like scalded cats—but the Falelima people were instructed to put in an appearance at Neiafu, about a mile away.

Accordingly, practically all the adult males of Falelima—including the Matais—arrayed themselves in the garb of the Fetu, loaded shot-guns—such as had them—and marched off in a body to Neiafu. Having arrived before the Administrator, they fired a salute in the air and presented arms. With this demonstration they declared that he was delighted.

In common with all other traders, I received a scrubby chit of waste paper—which I think I still have—on which was a scrawl in blue pencil to the effect that the Administrator would see me at a certain specified time. It was not, however, delivered to me, by Government messenger, until some hours after he had left Neiafu—the place I was directed to attend.

The following day the Fetu of Falelima were disbanded, and the privies were not many days in falling down.

XI

An illuminating general description of the Administrator's malanga, written by a senior official who accompanied him, is to be found in the Samoa Times of July 17th.

"To say that our Administrator had a successful malanga round Savaii is stating just a plain fact…. Two years ago the reception would have been more or less a mixed one without the semblance of order in the proceedings, but to-day everything was arranged with almost military precision. Children, Fetu, and others lined up under the various leaders and at the word of command marched or formed fours as if born to the game. No haste, no disorder, no rabble could be discerned: company by company the various schools and Fetu lined up on the village malae forming a square, and at a given signal sang God Save the King. This was followed by giving the five points of the Fetu pledge, and then alternatively in Samoan and English the following: 'To-day Samoa is a good country but to-morrow we will make it better.'"

(All this was according to instructions given in the Savali, the Government native publication, of May 23rd. The natives also were ordered to cheer—"men, women, and children.") There followed, as promised, distribution of "lollies," head-patting, and sports.

"The Picture Show [the article continued] under the care of Mr. Lofley, commenced at 7.30 p.m. and ran until 10.30 p.m. The success of the pictures has to be seen to be realized…. Taking the malanga right through the pictures must have been viewed by at least seven thousand natives in Savaii…. Mr. Massey on the Western Front brought forth lots of applause, especially when the screen showed the Administrator in uniform alongside Mr. Massey. The translating was done by I'iga of the Native Office, and his work throughout the malanga in this respect was of a very high standard…."

In the Samoa Times of the following Friday appeared this addition, apparently from the same source:

"The story of the malanga would not be complete without the text of the speech by His Excellency General Sir George Richardson. Hundreds of copies of the speech were printed and handed round to the Samoans at every gathering. The speech is characteristic of the man and tells the story of Samoa from the earliest days…. Progress has begun, and the people are slowly moving forward to make their country one of the best in the Pacific. The sixth part of the story gives a vision of Samoa in the days to come. Schools are everywhere … villages are clean and tidy … electric light… people are putting money in the bank, and everywhere is peace and happiness. When the cause of all this wonder and beauty is sought for, the inquirer is told that it is because of the Village Committees and District Councils, and because of the five rules of daily life that every Samoan observes. The last scene of this vision shows an entertainment going on in the village at night, with pictures being shown, and at the conclusion of the show, as the audience stand and sings God Save the King, the vision fades away."

These two effusions apparently were published also in Fiji, for in the Samoa Times of August 21, 1925, appeared an article entitled "A Wise Administrator," and running as follows:

"The Fiji Times of 5th August editorially says: 'Sir George Richardson, the Administrator of Western Samoa for New Zealand, under mandate, is not only showing exceptional ability in his office, but he has organized such a campaign of administration as can well be copied throughout the world, where page 195the control and development of native races is an important objective. An article, which we published yesterday, gives in a bird's-eye view a fair idea of what Sir George is doing. We strongly recommend our Government to study General Richardson's methods and ideals. They present a very sharp contrast to the methods—in many cases fruitless and hopeless—which have been used in Fiji…. Vision of Samoa as hoped for, under present methods lately introduced … money in the savings bank, and everywhere peace and contentment, the true reward of industry. Everything in Samoa points to the accomplishment of this very desirable end. We have here a lesson in modern administration which every colony in the Empire can well study and profit by. We congratulate Sir George Richardson on his understanding of a difficult position, and feel confident of a successful result from his efforts."

An interesting commentary upon all of the foregoing will be found in a letter published three years later and reproduced in the Appendix¹ to this book. It was written by an Australian trader who donned a khaki suit to render himself inconspicuous, and went and squatted upon the floor among the natives when the pictures were being shown in the village at which he was trading, during the Administrator's malanga. He was curious, he said, to see exactly what did go on.