TRIAL OF O. F. NELSON

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1934, Page 16 (Supplement)

TRIAL OF O. F. NELSON

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT ACTIVITIES OF THE DEFENDANT. DISCLOSURES IN LETTERS.’ The text of the final judgment of Judge J. H. Luxford in the lengthy Nelson trial has just reached Auckland from Samoa. In delivering his final judgment, Judge Luxford traversed the history of the Mau in Samoa and the association with the movement of the Hon. O. F. Nelson. “Little, if anything, need be added to justify the imposition of the sentence I propose to pass upon the defendant, Judge Luxford said. “Sufficient already appears in my interim judgment, but the facts I will now relate have been considered by me for the purpose of determining whether defendant should be sent into exile after the termination of his sentence. “The evidence satisfies me that the defendant at the beginning of the agitation against the Government acted conscientiously and with the highest motives, however misguided were the methods he employed—and subsequent events have proved how misguided they were. The evidence further shows that, even at the time of deportation and for some time after, defendant’s motives were still actuated by what he thought was in the best interests of the country, but he had made a promise to the Samoans that he would return with a victory for them, and should have known what the effect of such a promise would be. “DEEP-ROOTED OBSESSION.” The judgment comments on Nelson’s activities during his first period of deportation from Samoa and his attitude to the request from Europeans in Samoa that he should advise members of the Mau to meet the Administrator with a view to reaching a settlement. “Defendant returned to New Zealand after his visit to Geneva,” the judgment continues, “and some time afterward became associated with a man whose influence, in my opinion, is to some extent responsible for defendant’s subsequent conduct and has helped to bring him to his present unfortunate position. “He became obsessed with what he considered the injustice of his deportation for five years from his native country without trial; indeed the most painful (to me) feature of this long trial was his frequent use of that set expression and the emotion he exhibited each time he made use of it. It was evident that his grievance has become a deep-rooted obsession which often dominates his thoughts and actions.

A SEDITIOUS PAPER. “On May 9, 1929, there was published the first issue of the New Zealand Samoa Guardian. What I have examined satisfies me that it is a seditious paper of the worst type. Its main purpose has been maliciously to insult and •belittle the mandatory power and those to whom the administration of the country has been entrusted. There is ample evidence to prove that the paper could not have been published unless defendant had supplied the necessary funds and that he has been responsible for its continued publication. “The best indication of defendant’s state of mind is found in the article published under his own name in the issue of October 23, 1930. When a person is suffering from a grievance, real or imaginary, he seeks the association of those who will agree with him, and his mind becomes very receptive to suggestions for righting the grievance or punishing those whom he thinks are responsible for his position. In this case apparently defendant considered the Government of New Zealand and the Administrator of Samoa were responsible parties, and, assisted by the evil influence of Percy Andrews, editor and publisher of the Guardian, has waged an incessant campaign of calumny against the Government and those connected with it, through the medium of the Guardian, printed in English and Samoan languages and circulated throughout the territory and elsewhere. Two months ago this paper was declared seditious and prohibited from coming into Samoa.” LEITERS FROM ANDREWS. Extracts were given from a letter received by defendant from Andrews last November, reading as follows:—“It is murder the way the banks are trying to keep their throttle on you through your firm, but I know how ghoulish they are when they get their talons into anyone, and when there is political pull behind the bank, like the 8.N.Z., they will stick at nothing. “Talking over a quiet one with Petia after the fono yesterday, we agreed that if you were boldly to renounce the ‘Nelson’ and claim the ‘Taisi,’ it would put Hart and New Zealand off-side. . . That, of course, is only a suggestion, but with Faumui failing in health, if you were to do this and proclaim yourself openly a Samoan first, change the name of the firm, make it a co-operative concern 'as you could with as many Samoan shareholders as you can find—so long as you hold unchallenged control—you might be able to throw off the bank’s shackles, take open charge of the Mau and then see what the cows here would do.”

The Judge commented that in 1904 a man named Pullack had tried the course advocated by Andrews and a serious upheaval was narrowly averted by the German Government In answering Andrews’ letter, defendant made no reference to the suggestion. The proposal, on the face of it could only mean that defendant was to save his firm at the expense of the Samoan people, and from defendant’s failure promptly to denounce the author it could be inferred that he thought there might be something in it. SNEERS AT CHURCHES. In the same letter Andrews had sneered at the Samoans’ devotion to their churches and held they should pay more toward the upkeep of the Guardian. He wrote: —“They can always find money in Samoa to save their souls in the next world; can’t they find as much to save them in their own little world? I suppose a good Samoan would think nothing of giving £5 a year to his church (that’s only 2$ a week), but if asked for a dollar to help our fight he’d plead poverty and the price of oopra.” Defendant in his reply said: “The malaga of ten men each for Upolu and Savaii left to-day and will take , things very cautiously. One or two wild suggestions have already been made, but I knocked them on the head. Regarding the efforts of the Mau to cover expenses by contributions, you really must admit that they have done their best when you realise that, with the exception of the small district in and around Apia, the Samoans have been cutting copra for the last month or two which required a quantity of 20001 b dry copra, or 40001 b. green copra, to get but 20s cash, and when the price was reduced for a little while to 6d a 1001 b double that quantity was needed to get one sovereign in currency. To cut and dry it takes one man’s good hard work all his time to get 3001 b or 4001 b a week, which will also require a lot of time of his family to watch the drying process.”

The Judge said the letter did not tell Andrews that defendant would cease pressing the Samoans for every penny he. could get to keep a seditious paper going. He was prepared to believe that after defendant left New Zealand he had endeavoured to get rid of the effect of Andrews’ influence and had thought seriously of following the excellent advice given to him by the Prime Minister of New Zealand in a letter dated November 11, 1932. When defendant returned to Samoa on May 16, 1933, he “found himself on the horns of a dilemma. He had either to announce publicly and finally that he had failed, and take the inexorable consequences that Samoan custom would demand, or else devise a scheme to cover his failure.” Efforts had been made to hold a conference between the Administrator and the Mau, but the former would not agree to the presence of Nelson as one of the Mau’s representatives. The Samoans insisted and the Judge thought their attitude toward Nelson Was this: “You have led us into this trouble—it is for you to get us out of it.” “Again defendant was on the horns of a dilemma,” the judgment continues. “Once the negotiations with the Administrator had definitely broken down, he abandoned the restraint he had exercised since his return to Samoa. The old obsession possessed him and, regardless of the consequences to the Samoan people, he set them in train for what was likely to end in what he himself suggested—a clash of some kind sooner or later. FIRST STEP IN CAMPAIGN. “In September preparations were put in hand for the first definite step in defendant’s plan of campaign—the sending of the two malaga parties, one to go round Upolu and the other round Savaii. Defendant persistently questioned the members of those partie: to show that the sole object of the malaga was the laudable object of inspecting plantations and the cleanliness of villages and roads. The innocent and laudable object of the malaga parties is best rebutted by quotations from two letters —one from Andrews to defendant and the other from defendant to Andrews in reply. “From Andrews’ letter:—*l am glad to learn from yours of October 13 to me that the Mau are going in for silent organising work to get the running of the country into their hands, and they are wise in doing it without any publicity until the time comes to show their hand and prove what they have been doing. The whole question is very difficult and needs careful handling. A false move might be disastrous.’ “Defendant replied to that as follows:— ‘Regarding the silent organising work of the Mau to run the country, you are quite right in saying that it requires delicate handling, and a foolish move might be disastrous. The malaga of ten men each for Upolu and Savaii left to-day and will take things very cautiously. One or two wild suggestions have already been made, but I have knocked them on the head.’

AIMS COMPLETELY ALTERED. “One’s intelligence is shocked to think that defendant should have made a suggestion that the sole object of the malaga party was as I have previously stated. It is clear that the Mau itself decided on the malaga parties for the purpose of making inspections, but defendant made suggestions that completely altered the purpose of the party. “It is difficult to fix the dates of meetings when the malaga party was discussed, and defendant advised the committee of the Mau to reduce the size of each party, otherwise the law would be broken. I pause to observe that if defendant gave such advice it could not have been honestly given. The activities of the Mau itself, as he well knew, were illegal, and the size of a malaga party, whether large or small, could not alter that. If he gave honest advice, he would have told the committee that smaller malaga parties would not be so noticeable and there would be less chance of the police finding out about them. “In spite of the intention expressed in the first and second paragraphs of the ‘Poloaiga Muamua a le Mau,’ found in defendant’s possession, the document, viewed as a whole, shows that it is the first active part of ‘the silent organising work of the Mau to run the country’ and ‘a foolish move might be disastrous’ to that work. It justifies my comment that defendant was leading the Samoan people, through the Mau, to a position which would culminate in open rebellion.” “A FORCE OF EVIL.” .After referring to the sentencing in November and December of certain high chiefs and orators who were members of the malaga parties and his intention to recommend to the Administrator that the balance of their sentences should be remitted, as Nelson was the responsible party, Judge Luxford addressed defendant. “Your present position,” he said, “can be very briefly described as a sad tragedy. Hie evidence satisfied me, apart altogether from the manner in which you conducted your defence, that your outstanding ability was capable of being, indeed, actually was, a force of good to this country and to your mother’s people. But you have turned the talents wherewith you are blessed into a force of evil.

“The sentence of the Court is that you are to be imprisoned for eight months concurrently on each charge and exiled from Samoa for a term of ten years from this date.”