PACIFIC ISLANDS

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1920, Page 9

PACIFIC ISLANDS

(By Dr. Guy H. Scholefield.)

THIS ADMINISTRATION OF DEPENDENCIES RAROTONGA AND SAMOA REPRESENTATION OF WHITES.

The one thing upon which I think all members of Parliament were agreed throughout the cruise was the demand of the white communities for a say in their own government. The question arose both in Rarotonga and in Apia, and there was no disposition anywhere to oppose the claim.

In regard to Rarotonga., the reason why the whites have not been represented hitherto in the Island Council is historic. When Mr. Seddon made his arrangement with the arikis for the annexation he promised that their old system of government would be maintained. This consisted of island councils in each island and a Federal Council for the whole. It was maintained for some years, and the island councils were perpetuated in the Act of 1915, the Federal Council having long since expired from sheer ineptitude. The whites now number 150 out of a total population of 3000, and when they asked for representation Sir James Allen could only deplore that there was an obstacle in the way. Unless the chiefs xvould release the Government from their obligation New Zealand was bound to honour it.

The arikis had already complained of the loss of their mana through the individualisation of land titles. Nowadays their ord-ers are often met by their people with the remark that they are all landowners, and that the people are as good as the arilds. The feudal terror of dispossession is dead; the only mana that remains is the power which the arikis still exercise of nominating the members of the island councils'.. This, too, is henceforth to be carried out by a proper process of election. To placate the whites, Sir James Allen proposed to establish, an advisory council of two whites to act with the Resident Commissioner should the natives not consent to give them representation. "We are children," said Paaro, chief of Takitumu, when they met the Minister at Queen Makea's Palace. "We look upon you' as our fathers, and ask you to be generous in considering what w«> suggest."

They proposed that the native members of the Council hereafter should be elected, and that a European member should be elected—"a real British subject, not a half-caste"—by the European electors, but should have no power at all over native matters; that the Europeans should be under ; the same, law as the natives' in regard to liquor and to cohabiting with the ladies of the island. It was agreed that all laws of the New Zealand Parliament affecting the natives should be considered by them before being passed. This was a very satisfactory outcome, inasmuch as on the first day the arikis had declared that they would never agree to a white man being admitted to their Council. "We own all the land," they said with some bitterness, "and the Europeans are strangers living on the land and working it for their own benefit. The European mind is too deep for us to fathom." This had led to a pretty little debate wherein the arikis sought to hold back the hands of the clock. Pointing his remarks sternly with outstretched finger, Tinomanu demanded that the mana of the arikis and the rnataiapos be restored to them. It was with Queen Victoria that they had made their pact of annexation, and, she being dead, the white man had no power to proceed further to deprive them of their mana. ; The Labour members joined in eagerly, asking what it was that the arikis wanted back. Was it the feudal power of deprivation or eviction? Did-they claim they could 'quite dispossessl a man who displeased them? Was it not enough that they still had more land than the common people? ' ' Tinomanu: It would not suit me. Sir James Allen said the Government would do all it could to preserve the mana of the arikis, but they could not go back on. what had been done. The individualisation of land titles was a .fixed part of New Zealand's policy towards the natives. On the other band, the wisdom of preserving what remains of chiefly mana was evident at Aitutaki. Owing to the rise in wages the natives there saw clearly that it would pay them handsomely to commute their labour dues for 8s a half year, and it was only the authority of the arikis that broke a strong conspiracy in this direction. THE POSITION IN SAMOA. The town of Apia, in Samoa, has been governed by a municipal board, off and on, for nearly forty years, and the demand of the citizens' for the restoration of this right of local government was perfectly natural. Sir James Allen expressed his conviction that the best could only be done for the island and its people if all parties pulled together, and he. hoped the whites would co-operate loyally with the Administration. The white population of Apia is a very decent and on the whole a : responsible community with good business brains and any amount of talent for the management of local affairs. If they were a homogeneous community as regards nationality, :t would be out of. the question. to withhold from them rights of self-govern-ment, the exercise of .which would be of the greatest possible assistance, to the Administration, As it is,' most of the borough activities of police, sanitation, and street cleaning have <!o be performed by the police, now under Captain J. Gillespie, A.P.M. The Citizens' Committee put forward proposals for the creation, of a borough comprising about half the old municipality of Apia, with a rateable value of £250,000. Unfortunately the matter did not appear to have been well digested, and the committee had not appointed anyone to answer questions which obviously would arise. The quite imposj sible suggestion was put forward, evidently to meet expected objections, that the natives within the town should not be taxed unless thety wished to avail themselves of the facilities of water, drainage, and so on. This was to be permissive. Then the tangled question of the franchise had not been considered. I. could not ascertain with any certainty whether Germans or British are likely to be in a majority in Apia. If a British ascendency were assured the sooner the whites in Apia are entrusted with their >wn government the better. . Sir James Allen said the New Zealand Government had absolute power to grant a municipality, and would do so if it seemed necessary : but for the present it wanted to be consulted on all matters affecting the government of tha town. He was in favour of local. government when the time arrived, but he did not think it was yet ripe. They must remember the difficulties caused by the various elements of the population, British, Germans. half-castes, and 1 natives. . ' TOO MANY OFFICIALS. Many members of the party were' struck by trie apparent surplus of officials at Apia, where all the ta-appings of complete government departmenta seem to be in esse. The harbour em-

ploys a staff of a harbourmaster, a, deputy harbourmaster, and two clerks, to berth about one steamer and perhaps throe or four schooners per month. The cost of the administration just now must be very high, and the sooner the turnover from military occupation to civil conditions can be completed the tetter.

The constabulary is a source of annoys anoe with the whites, who professed to believe that their cost was on the revenues of Samoa, which it is not. Nobody seemed to regard them as a reasonable precaution for the absence of a warship—the final sanction of authority which was always present in the German regime. The British whites at Apia, as at Suva, might make the way easier for the administration by putting volunteer corps on a proper basis o? training without delay.