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.