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The Diversions of a Prime Minister

VIII. — Convicts and Police

page 105

VIII.
Convicts and Police.

There are times in life when one should be allowed four hands, two brains, and sustained insomnia. There was a great deal to do, and the sun, unmindful of the political importance of Tonga, would not stand still. I was threatened with lawsuits by merchants in New Zealand, who wanted me to recognise ruinous verbal contracts alleged to have been made with my predecessor; the British Vice-Consul was remonstrating with me for demanding rent from a British subject who claimed the fee-simple of the land he occupied; the courts were playing football with the law; the police were trampling airily on the rights of private property; the convicts walked the town with all the liberty and twice the assurance of free men; and the Europeans had resuscitated the defunct Chamber of Commerce, and were for once united in a determination to embarrass the Government. The Treasury and Customs, it was true, were safe in the hands of my able second; but Baker's accounts were crying to be audited, and if I were to relax my vigilance among my native colleagues, they were sure to fall out with me and with each other. page 106And with all this we knew that our enemies were busy in Vavau trying to sow distrust of us in the mind of the king.

Of all non-financial departments in the public service, the Prison was that which called first for reform. The jail was a wooden building fitted with tiny cells, so illventilated that to confine any person in them for many hours would be dangerous. In practice, only persons just arrested were confined there pending their trial: convicts were not confined at all. It was the most economical penal system in the world, for the convicts had to lodge, feed, and clothe themselves. A man sentenced to a fine of £20 must work for the Government for 400 days (his daily task being valued at 1s.) He might live at home, and work for the Government during the daytime: his sentence was counted by working days only, and did not include Sundays, nor days too wet to allow of work. The same rule applied to convicts sentenced to penal servitude. An original sentence of two years would be lengthened by sickness or wet weather to nearly three years, for it meant 730 days' labour. He could take a few holidays here and there when he pleased; but if he absented himself for many days in succession, he would receive a domiciliary visit from the head jailer. If he had a horse and cart, the loan of it to the Government, when the steamer was in, would reduce the sentence at the rate of 4s. a-day. The prisoners were variously employed. Some were the household servants of the king and the Cabinet Ministers-my seat in the Cabinet entitled me to two; others formed the crew of the Government vessels; others were stationed at the pilot station page 107on an island in the bay; but the majority lived upon the Government banana plantations. All alike were free to sleep where they pleased, and, if their homes were at a distance, were obliged to beg or steal their food. The female prisoners, who were generally in trouble for social offences, might be seen any day weeding the public squares; while their brown babies, oblivious of the fact that they had no right to exist, rolled about in the shade of the nearest tree. As a natural consequence of such a system, there was not only no disgrace attaching to imprisonment, but, since the beginning of the Church quarrels, there was even a certain câchet in being one of the goodly company of ministers of the Church and men of rank in trouble for their religious views.

Let it not be supposed that so great a legislator as Mr Baker had forgotten to provide regulations for the control of his convicts. I discovered them by mere accident, for they were not published. As already related, the son of the late Premier had passed through the group distributing photographs of his estimable father. The day he left Nukualofa, Ula, the head jailer, came to Tukuaho with a document in Tongan in the young man's handwriting, which may be translated as follows: "I, Ula, do declare before God that I have never flogged a woman by the orders of Mr Baker." There was a date and a place for the signature and the seal, neither of which had been affixed. "He sent twice to me to ask me to sign this," said Ula, "but I would not. Then he came himself, and asked me to sign by the love that I bore his father, but still I would not, so he called me by bad names and went away in the steamer."

page 108

"And did you flog women by order of Mr Baker?" I asked.

Ula fumbled in his waistband, and produced a tiny green-paper book, printed in Tongan, and pointed to the words, "It shall be lawful to flog any prisoner guilty of unruly conduct." Then turning over the pages he showed me the signature at the foot, "Misa Beika" They were the Prison Regulations, and I at once annexed them for future study. "There is nothing there forbidding me to beat women," continued Ula, "so I beat them when they were unruly, and Mr Baker knew that I did and said nothing. It is not forbidden in our customs." It appeared that the story of the women being flogged had been carried to Auckland by one of the ships-of-war, and the fallen Premier wanted to clear his character by an affidavit from a Tongan jailer.

As the right to punish was vested in the jailer, it was of course not used against those who had taken the precaution of winning his favour. There was in fact no discipline, and the prisoners were fast becoming a source of public danger.

Yet smooth as was the life of a Tongan malefactor, no Tongan likes work; and since it was so easy to escape, it became fashionable to steal boats and set sail for Samoa or Fiji. There was a spice of adventure and danger about such an escape that exactly suits a Tongan. They suffered sometimes. Jope, who reached Lakemba in an open boat in 1886, would have died of hunger in another twelve hours. Two men who sailed from Niuafoou were never again ueard of. On the other hand, several such attempts were successful. The men who stole the Government page 109despatch-boat Beatrice have settled at Wallis Island, and those who escaped in the boat of the German firm from Vavau reached Samoa in safety. But for the extradition clause of the English treaty they would all have safely made Fiji with a fair wind, but they knew that from a British colony they would be sent back to be dealt with in a Tongan court. The German firm was now pressing a demand for compensation for the value of their stolen boat; and an English storekeeper, from whom the prisoners had stolen their clothes, was arguing with reason that a Government that would not keep its prisoners under lock and key should be held responsible for the consequences of their acts. It was high time to introduce prison reform, if I could find a prison.

The houses built for the labourers introduced by Baker to work the Government plantations were still standing, and could be made prisoner-proof pending the erection of a proper jail, for which I had plans prepared. One of the long buildings would do for the men and the other for the women, while the warder could live in the small house between the two. I hunted up a lot of iron bars, and set the native carpenters to sink them into the windowframes. Then I drafted Prison Eegulations of the usual kind, and passed them through the Cabinet under the authority of one of the existing laws. As soon as they had been printed in the native press, a day was appointed when, to their intense indignation, the gentlemen of the jail were made to bow their heads to the scissors, and, worse indignity still, were locked up at night. Even the Cabinet was aghast at the boldness of this step. The prisoners vowed vengeance. Tonga under such circum-page 110stances was not to be endured: the Government must either be turned out, or the prisoners must seize the Government vessels and escape to Samoa. For a time—strange though it sounds—the prisoners proved themselves to be an influential body of men, and actually embarrassed the Government by appealing to the sympathy of their friends. Their confinement at night was thought to be a despotic exercise of power, and the compulsory hair-
A card-party in the jail.

A card-party in the jail.

cutting
little short of a barbarity. For several days the prisoners appeared in hats, and as this marked them from other people, and also kept the sun off their heads, they were not interfered with. The only precaution we thought it necessary to take was to arm the night warder and the masters of the Government vessels.

One evening a few weeks later I strolled towards the jail, whence most unpenitential sounds of merriment had been reported. The men's ward and the warder's cottage page 111were in darkness, but a blaze of light streamed from the windows of the female ward. I thought I caught the muffled ring of kava-stones, and—oh, horror!—the sound of masculine laughter. Kubu, my companion, vowing vengeance against the unsuspecting warder, led me towards the window. There were two kerosene-lamps on the floor, a female prisoner was pounding kava, while the other prisoners of both sexes were squatting in a circle watching a game of euchre between the warder and a housebreaker, each with a good-looking partner from the female ward. I left Kubu to break in upon this pleasant little party, and I heard next day that the warder had retired into private life.

Not long after this two prisoners, who formed the crew of the Government ketch Kumeti, took the opportunity of seizing the Government despatch-boat Alice while her police crew and their own warder were making a night of it on shore. They guarded against pursuit by taking with them the gear belonging to the Kumeti. Reaching Samoa, they stranded the boat, and joined the settlement of Tongans on Upolu. We had no extradition treaty with Samoa. The bickerings between the three Powers were slaked for the moment by the Treaty of Berlin, under which brilliant effort of statecraft a Consular Board, a Municipal Council, a Lands Commission, and a Swedish Chief-Justice had been sent to fight the quarrel out upon the spot. But Malietoa was king, and to Malietoa I applied for the recovery of the boat and the prisoners. I chose the smart embossed paper headed "Ministry for Foreign Affairs," and wrote in the king's name to request his royal brother to arrest the runaways, and to send back the boat. page 112In due course I received an answer, written by the king's native secretary in excellent English, saying that the men had been arrested but had broken loose again. A month later, however, they were rearrested very cleverly, and landed with the stolen boat at Nukualofa, where they received in the Supreme Court a sentence likely to deter others from similar attempts. With them came a second letter from King Malietoa, enclosing his account for expenses—£3, 15s.—and a polite intimation that he was obliged to make this charge, owing to the unsettled state of his Government; but that in a few months, when he had had time to organise his staff, he would be very glad to do such small services for his brother's Government for nothing. We heard afterwards that at that time he had no police at all, but that he had offered a reward for the capture, and a number of big Samoans had gone manhunting until the runaways were caught. The whole transaction was probably illegal, but it was morally justifiable, and not more irregular than most other movements of public affairs in Samoa at the time.

The police also had so fine a disregard for legal forms that they were becoming a source of embarrassment. They were cursed with an excess of zeal bred of ambition. They were classed in three ranks—the Inisipeketa (Inspector) with a salary of £30, the polisi (policeman) with £20, and the kateta (cadet) with £10 a-year. Kubu had hit upon the happy idea of letting promotion depend upon individual activity, as shown by the number of prosecutions instituted by each man. Just as even the best of Christians does not pass a single day without committing some sin, so must a Tongan be morbidly law-abiding who page 113can lie down at night without having been entangled in the meshes of Mr Baker's code by sins of omission or commission. An ambitious kateta had only to note a hole in the road, or a few dead leaves in the town square, or to peer through the transparent reed walls of a private house at illicit card-playing after ten o'clock curfew, to have ground for laying an information. If he wanted excitement, he might chase one of the numerous stray horses and pigs, and lead it in triumph to the pound; or, if all these failed, he need only lie in wait at dusk on the road leading to the plantations for some heedless wretch returning home with his shirt
Promotion hunting.

Promotion hunting.

over his arm, to secure a conviction for indecent exposure of the person. If he had a taste for gossip—and what Tongan has not?—he might forestall his own Inisipeketa by hunting down a flirtation, and haling the delinquents page 114before the grim tribunal; but this, being the special sphere of his superior officer, was dangerous ground.

The eighteen policemen of Nukualofa were divided into three "classes" (Kalasi). Each class was on duty in the police-station for seven days; during the following week they rode about the island picking up from the mayors and village constables materials on which to found charges in the police court; but for the third week they were off duty, and were free to attend to their food-plantations. The Inspector and his assistant took it in turns to be on duty at the station to receive reports. Each policeman was expected to find his own horse, but the Government supplied him with a saddle. He had also to provide his own rations, except during the week he was on duty, when he had the run of a tin of biscuits. The station was a ruinous little building, containing two rooms and a row of ill-ventilated cells. One of Kubu's first acts was to dismantle a number of these cells to make bunks, in which one or two policemen might always be found asleep, while the rest sat on the floor pounding kava. They had no regular beats, and besides attending court and executing distress warrants, their principal occupation seemed to consist in carrying messages for the Cabinet Ministers, who summoned them for the purpose by an electric bell that connected the station with the Premier's office. Besides the native police there was one white constable, who for £50 a-year was content to obey the orders of his native superiors. He was an assiduous officer when sober, and even at other times he could, not be described as inactive, if hoisting the American flag of a Sunday afternoon, and fighting any of his colleagues who tried page 115to haul it down, may be held to establish a claim to energy.

As promotion depended upon the quantity rather than the quality of the prosecutions instituted by the police, they naturally chose those that entailed the least amount of labour. Thefts are troublesome to unravel, therefore thieves were wisely let alone in favour of luckless wights guilty of wearing turbans, or of not wearing girdles within the town, or of failing to dismount in the presence of a member of the House of Lords; for though the penalty for these offences was only one dollar, yet the convictions would all count for promotion. Less simple, but more interesting, were the prosecutions for flirting; and although the glory of conviction would redound to the sole credit of the Inisipeketa, yet the policeman who worked up the case had the reward of every good man who fearlessly does his duty.

The mistaken zeal of these assiduous officers was provoking loud murmurs against us. Their little fingers, it was said, were thicker than their predecessors' loins, and I was accused of having destroyed the last lingering respect for a white man in the mind of the Tongan policeman—a respect which even Mr Baker had been at pains to preserve. They pounced upon horses tethered in the road by their European owners and took them in triumph to the pound: under the late Administration the police left white men's horses unmolested. They even built a pound for pigs, and initiated it by the imprisonment of Mr L—'s sow, thus bringing upon me several consular remonstrances headed "Re L—'s sow." They trampled under foot the sanctity of private property by pursuing page 116stray cattle into private enclosures; and—last indignity of all—they made the Consul's servant take his turban off, and threatened to prosecute him for wearing it. This last piece of effrontery precipitated the crisis, and I lost no time in providing Kubu with a hastily drafted code of Police Regulations for submission to the Cabinet. They set forth the offences which the police should prosecute, and those which should be left to the injured party, and among the latter class I included flirting, which I considered to be a matter for the relations of the offenders rather than for the police. Kubu and Tukuaho both agreed with me; Tungi and Sateki were doubtful, thinking it a dangerous innovation. The Chief-Justice did not understand the question, and therefore voted with us; and the Minister of Finance was far away in some fiscal problem, or deep in the difficulties of his domestic commissariat, and did not vote. So the Regulations were passed and printed. The police took them cheerfully until they understood that they were to be debarred from prosecutions for philandering. When this was explained to them, a deputation, consisting of the Inisipeketa and Peter Vi,—whose enterprise as spy had won him his heart's desire, the post of Assistant Inspector,—waited respectfully upon Tukuaho as representatives of their body. They said that when they first read the clause they supposed it to be a mistake, but the Minister had undeceived them. If these Regulations became law their occupation would be gone. Thefts? Why, there were but few thefts, and they were all past finding out, being of various kinds; whereas flirtations were many and easily fathomable, since their nature page 117did not vary. But we were obdurate. The law did not make the police moral censors, nor was it so written in the Constitution. The awful word "Konisitutone" silenced argument, and the question was shelved until the meeting of Parliament, when, as I shall presently relate, we were worsted.