THE ADMINISTRATION OF DEPENDENCIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3448, 13 April 1920, Page 41

THE ADMINISTRATION OF DEPENDENCIES

RAROTONGA AND SAMOA. REPRESENTATION OF WHITES. By Db Gur H. Slcholefield, Special Representative of the Otago Daily Times. The ono thing- upon which I think all members of Parliament were agreed throughout the cruise was the demand of the white community for a say in their own government. The question arose both in liarotonga and in Apia, and there was no disposition anywhere to oppose the claim. in. regard to Rarotonga, the reason why the white)*have not been rexjresented hitherto in the Island Council is historic. When Mr Seddon made his arrangement with the arikis for tho annexation ho promised that their old system of government would be maintained. This consisted of island councils in each island, and a Federal Council for tho whole. It was maintained for some years, and the island councils were perpetuated in the Act of 1915, tho 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 would release the Government from its 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 orders are often met by their people with the remark that they are all landowners and that tho people are as good as arikis. 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, and this, too, is henceforth to be carried out by a proper prooass of election. To placate the whites Sir James Allen proposed to establish an advisory- council oi 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 we suggests 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 halfcaste" —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 tho 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 haddeclared that they would never agree to-a white man being admitted to the council. "Wo 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 bands of the clock. Pointing his remarks sternly with outstretched finger, Tinomaru demanded that the mana of the arikis and the mataiapos 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 is was that the arikis wanted back. Was it the feudal power of deprivation or eviction? Did they claim they could quite dispossess a man who displeased them? Was it not enough that they still had more land than the common people ?_ Tinomanu replied it would not suit him. Sir James Allen said the Government would do all it oould to preserve the many 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 hand, 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 onlv the authority of the _ arikis . that broke - -+rong conspiracy in this direction. T; ~ POSITION IN SAMOA. The .own of Apia, in Samoa, has been governed by a municipal board, off and on, for .nearly 40 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 cooperately loyally with the Administration. Tho white population of Apia is a very decent and, on the whole, a responsible community with srood business brains and any amount of talent for the management of local affairs. If they were a homogeneous community as regards nationality it would be out of the question to withhold from them rights of self-government, 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 to 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 impossible suggestion was put forward, evidently to meet expected objections, that the natives within the town should not be taxed unless they 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 bee l considered. I could not ascertain Vith any certainty whether Germans or British are likely to be in a majority in Apia. II a British ascendancy were assured, iho sooner the whites in Apia are entrusted Usrith their own 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 in all matters affeoting the government of tho 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 natives. TOO'MANY OFFICIALS. Many members of the party were struck by the apparent surplus of officials at Apia, where all the trappings of complete Government departments seem to be "in esse." The "harbour employs a staff of a harbourmaster, a deputy harbourmaster, and two clerics to berth about one steamer and perhaps 'three 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 better. The constabulary is a source of annoyance 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—tho 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 a volunteer corps on a proper basis of training without delay.