The Press MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1934. The Situation in Samoa

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21111, 12 March 1934, Page 8

The Press MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1934. The Situation in Samoa

| During the last 10 years the New | Zealand public has been by turns j alarmed, puzzled, exasperated, and ! disappointed by events in Samoa. Perhaps the feeling of disappointment has predominated. When the mandate was conferred, government j and people had high hopes and high ] intentions. The long-sought opporr tunity to extend New Zealand's influence in the Pacific islands seemed ! to have arrived: and it was confi- : dently expected that a country | which had dealt so successfully with i the Maoris would have little diffi- ' culty in governing another branch of the Polynesian race in Samoa. Moreover, New Zealanders were excusably proud that their country should have been given a part in an important and interesting experiment in international government. Occasional tributes to the impartiality and goodwill of the Samoan administration, to the success of its efforts to improve the health and the economic welfare of the Samoans, and to its manifest desire to enlist the co-operation of the Samoans in the task of government have been overshadowed, in the outside world at any rate, by the conflict with the Mau and by such unhappy incidents as the killing of Tamasese. In the European press criticism of New Zealand's handling of the mandate has always been misinformed and not infrequently it has been thoroughly malicious. In New Zealand itself the consciousness of good intentions thwarted and misinterpreted has produced a feeling very close to humiliation; and. it has ever been suggested that the mandate should be surrendered to some power, preferably either Great Bri- ! tain or the United States, with a wider experience in administering native races. Moreover, the uneasiness of New Zealanders over Samoa has been increased by the difficulty of obtaining accurate information about Samoan affairs. Perhaps unavoidably, news —in the newspaper sense—about Samoa is usually bad news. From the Mau headquarters in Samoa and in Auckland has come a steady stream of propaganda against the administration, countered occasionally by members of the New Zealand Government in statements j usually more indignant than en- | lightening. Even the discussions on | Samoan affairs by the Mandates | Commission—one was reported in ! " The Press " a few days ago—have | done little to clarify the situation. | Through no fault of its own, the j New Zealand public is almost comj pletely ignorant of the real nature of the Samoan problem and of the measures by which the administration has sought to solve that problem. There has been an urgent need for a scientific and dispassionate study of Samoan affairs since the war; and that need has now been filled by MiFelix Keesing, whose book, Modern Samoa, has just been published by Messrs Allen and Unwin. Mr Keesing's admirable monograph on recent tendencies in Maori life and his research work in the Pacific islands have already established for him a reputation as an authority on the development of . Polynesian peoples in contact with Europeans, i Though he is an unsparing critic, his book will do much to reassure and hearten New Zealanders, and will, it must be hoped, persuade some foreign critics to a more balanced view of the record of the Samoan administration. Mr Keesing emphasises that the Samoan problem is much more complex than at first appears and that primarily it is a problem of psychology rather than of politics. Owing to Samoa's geographic isolation, he points out, western culture is arriving in a heterogeneous and attenuated form, with the result that, while it is a powerful agency in disintegrating indigenous culture and social life, it does not provide any satisfactory basis for reintegration.

The salvation of the Maori in NewZealand, for instance, appears to have lain in the fact that there was a stimulus of economic necessity and white competition to bring him out of what were 50 years of bitter disorganisation and weakened morale. The Samoan, however, is in a tropical environment where mere animal needs are easily satisfied, living under a communal system which discourages individual enterprise; whites and western influences are relatively few and specialised, and the native tends to learn only the externals of the wider world culture; leadership continues to lie with the old, who are often also the torpid and conservative, and there is no encouragement of innovation or outlet for youth's enthusiasm within the native group. This situation explains the Mau, which is " essentially a manifesta- " tion of a cultural-pathological "condition in Samoan life, product " of a long period of conflict, repression, lack of interest and excite- " ment, and social disintegration." Mr Keesing insists, and the point is important, that fundamentally the Mau is not a political organisation and that "the ring of certainty and "exact vocalisation of Mau aims "exists only among European sup-

"porters and those leaders directly " under their instruction." This being so, " official logic, the legalistic " approach of the Royal Commission "of 1927, or the outstretched hand "of verbal compromise of more re"cent years have been ineffective "against it." This last passage contains the gravamen of Mr Keesing's criticism of New Zealand administration in Samoa. In the past the Mau has been taken literally and an honest attempt made to deal with it in terms of its expressed aspirations. But if Mr Keesing is correct the Mau will disappear only when Samoan social life has adjusted itself to new conditions; and the process will necessarily be slow. In the meantime the administration can only be patient with its subjects and with its critics and endeavour to probe more deeply into the curiously complex mentality of the Samoan people. Mr Keesing makes short work of the contention that the Samoans are quite capable of governing themselves. If it were possible to isolate Samoa from the world, then its inhabitants could safely be left to look after themselves. But as isolation is not possible, it is essential that the Samoans should be under disinterested tutelage during the period in which their habits and institutions are j being transformed by western influences. Nor does Mr Keesing favour the suggestion that New Zealand should yield her mandate to some other power. "Even should " the islands become politically au- " tonomous," he says, "it would " seem that the cultural destiny of " Western Samoa, perhaps of all " Samoa, is bound closely with New " Zealand." There is in the Pacific islands the beginning of " a wider " Polynesian consciousness and " spirit" in the development of which New Zealand can, if she wishes, play an important part.