SAMOAN MANDATE

Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1920, Page 4

SAMOAN MANDATE

THE PRINCE AT APIA

NATIVES AND NEW ZEALAND.

(By John Sandes, Special Correspond*

ent on H.M.S. Renown)

AT SEA, Aug. 29

1 Samoa—a land of hurricanes, ro--1 mance, and war. Yonder it lay, two ’ miles away, when the great chain cable *of the battle-cruiser rattled through ! the hawsepipe, and the anchor gripped the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Bathed in brilliant sunshine, on an August morning, the Island of TJpolu, with ! Apia, the capital, nestling close to the i water, bore a general resemblance to in the Sandwich Islands, with its capital, Honolulu. The Samoan hillp were not so high, but they were ■ jusFTis ,green, and the cloud wreaths wrapped the serrated crest just ns j gracefully. But, looking through a telescope, one soon saw that Apia was a very small town, in no way comparable with the bustling American city , which is the capital of the Hawaiian Group. A single street of white houses runs parallel with the seafront. To the right of the little harbour, formed by an opening in the reef, in which the rollers are breaking, is Point Mulinuu. The rusty remnants of the German warship Adler, wrecked in the hurricane of 1889, still lie upon the beach. Seven miles inland one can descry the tall mast of the powerful wireless station with which the Germans who erected it could communicate directly with Berlin. On the summit of that green conical hill, which looks as though it may once have been a volcano, is the grave of R. L. Stevenson. We landed in the harbourmaster’s launch, substantially built to stand the heavy seas on this coast, and steered by a tall Samoan with strong equiline features and the gaze of an eagle. The Prince came ashore a little later in the launch of the Administrator, Colonel R. E. Tate, C.8.E., an official appointed by the New Zealand Government, which holds the mandate for administering Samoa on behalf of the League of Nations, in recognition of the fact that the island was captured from the Germans by New Zealand troops at the outset of the war. The Prince was warmly welcomed by the'white community, consisting mainly of officials in white linen suits, with a few ladies in the lightest of summer dresses, and by the native population, who were more elaborately arrayed. The men, who were mostly bare to the waist, wqre sulus of brilliant hues, purple silk being not infrequent. Occasionally they wrapped about their, shoulders a cloak of tapa cloth made of bark fibre and hand-painted with designs of leaf and bird in dyes of striking colours. The women chose short petticoats of woven grasses, with bodices of the useful tapa cut fashionably low, and necklaces of sharks’ teeth. Both sexes being in full dress wore neatly-made anklets of green leaves, and made up their faces with a dye of ultramarine blue. The “Kaiser” moustache of brilliant blue painted on the tawny faces of many stalwart warriors was a startling reminder of-the period of German occupation. The Samoans are a seafaring people, and though the Prince has been escorted more imposingly by aeroplanes and destroyers when making an official landing, he has never had more picturesque attendants than the Samoan seamen in their highly-ornamented racing boats, each from 50ft to 60ft in length, carrying a crew of 40 or 50 flower bedecked rowers, with a specially selected stentor at the stern and another at the bow, to yell directions nnd encouragement.

After the presentations had been made on the landing stage and the addresses had been received, the real business of the day began with a motor scurry to Point Mulinuu, where the Prince sat in a leafy pavilion to receive the homage of the chiefs and to drink the “royal kava,” surrounded by a great assemblage of Samoan natives, all in a mood of uproarious hilarity. Tho members of the “faipuli,” or native council, sat on the ground in a semicircle, facing the royal pavilion, while Malietoa Tanuu, son of that Malietoa who waged war against Mataafa in the old days, recited an address of welcome so thickly stuffed with Scriptural quotations as to suggest that lie was not the sole author of it. Behind the “faipuli” were rows and rows of awny soldiers glistening with cocoanut oil. These belonged to the constituents of the “faipuli,” and threading a mazy path among—them went the professional dancers, massive men wearing “busbies” of human hair, and kilts of leaves and feathers, whose duty it was to entertain the spectators with comic antics. A native feast in the “fono house,” the native council chamber, followed, and there the visitors from tlie Renown sat cross-legged on mats, and were waited upon by “taupo-girls,” upon whom devolves the duty of showing hospitality to strangers One got fugitive glimpses of a small midshipman almost obscured from view by the two radiant hostesses in short grass petticoats, who sat on each side ,of him, and plied him incessantly with taro, shell-fish, and giant bananas. Everybody was treated with the same lavish hospitality, and when the meal was over each naval officer in spotless white and gold might be seen towing his taupe girl through the crowd, for she had a way of slipping .her hand into that of her selected guest with a smiling frankness that was irresistible and would take no denial.

A few inquiries soon showed . that neither the white population nor the natives are given to rejoicing over the administration of Samoa by New Zealand. As a matter of fact, the exercise of the mandate by New Zealand has given rise to bitter dissatisfaction and discontent, and I was informed that the natives are now engaged in preparing a petition imploring that Samoa shall be withdrawn froiruthe control of New Zealand and placed under that of Great Britain. Probing for the real cause of the native discontent was an operation of some delicacy, but at last it came to light. The influenza epidemic of November, 1918, was an appalling scourge in Samoa, which was then under the control of a New Zealand military governor. The epidemic wiped opt 9000 natives out of a total population of 40,000. The disease got completely

beyond control, and the whole island became a pest house. It is stated that the military governor from New Zealand refused an offer of medical assistance from the American authorities at Pago Pago, who volunteered to send doctors, nurses, and medical equipment but were met with a blank refusal. How inuoh or how little truth there is in the allegation I cannot say, but the natives certainly attributed their terrible casualty list to the fault of the administration. Ever since then they have been advocating against New Zealand control, and proclaiming their desire to be ruled by the British Government.

The white residents of Apia have a string of grievances of their own, the chief of which is that they have no voice whatever in tlie government of the Island, and cannot even protest effectively against such an ordinance as was introduced last May enforcing the total prohibition of alcoholic liquor. Why, they ask, with apparent reasonableness, should New Zealand, which lias not subjected its own citizens to prohibition, have the power to impose such an infliction upon the white residents of Samoa ? Five minutes’ conversation with any representative white resident produces a formidable list of complaints against the present administration. New Zealand has certainly not made a good beginning with her new dependency. - It seems clear that the New’ Zealand Government did not select the most competent officer available for that very important job. In view of the'"thorough dissatisfaction, both among the whites and among the natives, with the existing administration it is impossible to reach any other conclusion.

A short trip through the island is sufficient to reveal its wonderful productivity. The Harbourmaster assured me that it is the richest of all the islands in the South Pacific, yet it is producing but little. The great problem is how to induce the natives to work. The Germans had „their own methods of securing an output of labour, but those methods are not generally commended. If the Samoans cannot be trained to work by kindness, it it possible to procure labour elsewhere to develop the unrivalled natural riches of their islands. These are difficult problems—too difficult to be solved, it may be feared, by the present administration in New Zealand’s puzzling dependency. Escaping at last from the throng, I found an opportunity to visit Vailima by motor car. The native chauffeur drove at breakneck pace along the wellmade road that threads its way through cocoa palm plantations and tropical jungle to the house that Robert Louis Stevenson built for himself in the old happy days before the war. A big bungalow painted slate grey stands on the lower slope of a hill that towers up fifteen hundred feet above it. The house was added to by the German Governor, who took it for his official residence when Britain ceded the island to Germany, nearly 20 years ago. But the room in which that great writer, with the tender, passionate soul, breathed his last in 1894 is still just as he built it. The house is now the official residence of the Administrator. I was shown a . door leading from the large reception room to a passage that comes from tlie kitchen. It was just as he entered by that door that Stevenson fell, stricken down by a sudden haemorrhage, and died . at . his wife’s feet. One remembers the lovely little poem that he penned to his wife with, her “Eyes of Gold and Bramble-dew.” He wrote:— Steel-true and blade-straight, The Great Artificer made my mate. Well, she was with him at the end. He lies in his grave on the top of the hill that rises behind the house, looking down from one side on Vailima, and out on the other side across the Pacific, that stretches away like an image of eternity. And so, thinking of him as he lies in this “treasure island” that holds his bones, one remembers those other lines that he wrote also— Home is the hunter, home from the hill, And the sailor home from the sea.