Early in 1924, Tamasese, a grandson of the former king, came into collision with the Administration. His offence was that of planting a hedge near his house on what he protested was his own land. The objection to the hedge, according to current report, lay in that it obstructed the view—into Tamasese's house—of a native pastor of the London Mission.

"His Excellency yesterday learned of your disobedience of his order with reference to the removal of the hedge. I am instructed to give you to 5 p.m. on this date within which to remove this nuisance. You are therefore hereby notified.

Tamasese having failed to obey the peremptory order to remove the hedge, he was, under the Samoan Offenders Ordinance of 1922, banished by the Administrator from his own village of Vaimoso, near Apia, to Leulumoega, about twenty miles away.

On his breaking the banishment order and returning to Vaimoso he was brought before the High Court, imprisoned page 169as a result of breaking the order for a week, deprived by the Administrator of his kingly title, and banished for life to the village of Asau on the Island of Savaii. All this is on record in the Report of the Royal Commission on the Administration of Western Samoa, 1927. In this matter the statute-book was not even followed, for no period was specified on the final banishment order. This, said the Chief Justice of New Zealand, who presided over the Royal Commission, in common law "would be read as banishment for life." Tamasese's chiefly or kingly title, the reader may be interested to know, was never given back to him. That, explained the counsel for the Administration before the Royal Commission, was beyond the Administrator's power.