II

The natives, with difficulty dissuaded from opposing the deportations with violence, became more belligerent. A Mau "Police Force" was formed, acted as a guard of honour to Mr. Nelson when he went aboard his ship, and its uniformed pickets enforced a boycott of Apian stores and trading-stations. A poll-tax to the value of.£20,000 was already overdue, and it was intended further to cripple the Government by curtailing Customs and Excise revenue. All the while the Samoans bluntly refused to meet the Administrator or the Faipule Fono. On February 18, 1928, it was stated that a serious position had arisen, and the cruisers Diomede and Dunedin were hurriedly despatched to the islands from New Zealand. It was announced officially that the maintenance of peace was improbable.

On the arrival of the warships four hundred Mau "police" page break

Marines Rounding Up "Mau Police" on Apia Beach

page 237were arrested and imprisoned under cover of naval landingparties. There was no resistance. A further two hundred marched into Apia and were taken outside the town and released, while Marines searched native and European houses. On the 24th the Samoans expressed a desire to confer with the Commodore of the fleet. On March 1st the original four hundred "police" were sentenced each to six months' imprisonment for intimidation.

On February 27th a censorship over telegraphic messages had been established in Samoa, and various conflicting statements reached the outer world. It was announced first that the Administrator had offered clemency to the Mau prisoners and that the outlook for peace was hopeful. Then that the prisoners had rejected the terms, demanding self-government under the British flag; which proposal they were informed was seditious. Next, that the Faipules had "decided on legislation affecting the Samoans," and meetings with the Administrator would be held to bring all factions into unity, and a big gathering then held near Apia to terminate the Mau movement. On the following day the four hundred Mau prisoners were suddenly released—"the Administrator, recognizing that they had been misled by non-natives, being disinclined to continue their imprisonment." On the day after, it was proclaimed that the Administrator's term of office, then expiring, would not be renewed. And four days later (on March 14th) came a lying message—which the Prime Minister of New Zealand had subsequently to repudiate and try to explain away as the work of a "junior administrative official"—anticipating a grave crisis in which the "loyal natives" were to take "effective action," and blaming the naval forces for their "inability to detain the Mau prisoners on the Peninsula of Mulinuu" and for failing effectively "to protect the Administration while the police were endeavouring to arrest the rebels." Insults to white women, it was falsely stated, were becoming of common occurrence.

This period was further disgraced by sudden inexplicable panics among certain of the white officials, who, led by the Aide-de-Camp, fled suddenly on occasion to the hills at dead of night and took refuge behind barbed-wire at the Wireless Station.