The Press WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1961. Towards Independence In Samoa

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 14

The Press WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1961. Towards Independence In Samoa

Next January Western Samoa will become the first South Pacific territory to have passed through a period of colonial rule and regained its independence. The recent plebiscite, at which Samoans overwhelmingly endorsed the constitutional programme and the proposed date of independence, would have been ironic if it had produced the contrary result. New Zealand, the Power to which Western Samoa was mandated by the United Nations in 1946, had endeavoured conscientiously to prepare the Samoans for early self-government, in the conviction that this was the Samoans* own wish. Since 1953, when an Executive Council was established, there had been steady progress towards the evolution of forms of government appropriate to complete autonomy. This process reached an impor-

tant stage in October, 1958, when control of the executive Government was transferred to a Samoan Prime Minister and Cabinet. By such means Samoan politicians were trained for sharing in the work of a Government-appointed consultative committee and of a convention summoned last October to prepare a constitution. It is the product of this convention that the Samoan people have now endorsed.

The Samoans have not always been so co-opera-tive. Earlier New Zealand administrators found that unacceptable policies were either frustrated or twisted to serve Samoan ends. Much more recently Samoan leaders have occasionally pressed for greater speed towards independence—for instance in 1947, when they petitioned the United Nations Trusteeship Council for immediate autonomy. Today it is open to question whether independence is being hastened unwisely. Arrangements for the referendum—which both the Samoan Prime Minister (Fiame Faumuina Mata’afa Mulinu’u II) and the New Zealand Government considered an unnecessary appendage to the constitutional convention—approximated more closely to a system of universal suffrage than anything the Samoans

had known previously. Yet the voters endorsed the retention of the "matai” system of representation, which vests the franchise in heads of households. Thus in their new national status the Samoans will preserve a fundamental feature of the social organisation to which they have been accustomed for almost 1000 years. The advantages of the “ matai ” system to express effectively the political aspirations of an unsophisticated people were strongly urged at the constitutional convention. These include features that ideally transform each family group into the microcosm of a democracy —elective rights of family headship, and powers of communal discipline. In the meantime at least, the system appears likely to meet Western Samoan requirements better than universal franchise. Independence will not

ease the Samoans’ problems; rather will it increase the hazards to which the islands will be exposed. More vigorous measures are needed to expand productivity, raise living standards, and diversify economic effort. Far more Samoans must be trained for administrative or professional responsibilities. The Samoans’ attributes do not include a readilykindled interest in politics; and although the Govern-

ment took extraordinary pains to acquaint them with the issues at the referendum, many did not recognise the significance of the : occasion. The islands, . though remote from the main areas of ideological • conflict, may attract greater • attention from the Comi munist countries after inde- • pendence. They will con- ■ tinue to benefit from New 5 Zealand assistance, ar- • ranged under a projected r treaty of friendship; and it i is hardly likely that they s will choose not to remain . within the Commonwealth. > of which they may become i the smallest independent • member. In the meantime i the wind sets fair for ■ Samoan independence; but, ■ because no comparable ’ development has occurred ■ among Polynesian peoples, • the effects of inevitable i squalls will be awaited ; anxiously, particularly in s New Zealand.