CHAPTER NINE

Preparation for Independence 1945 - 1961

Contributors:

Malama Meleisea Penelope Schoeffel'Meleisea Gatoloai Peseta Sib

United Nations Trusteeship

At the end of the second World War, the United Nations Organization (UNO) was established to take the place of the League of Nations. This organization assumed responsibility for the territories which had been given to various world powers under Mandate in 1919-1920 by the old League of Nations. Again, territories held by the defeated parties were reallocated, and in the Pacific, Japan's Micronesian territories were handed over to the USA. In October 1946, Samoan and local European members of the Legislative Council realised that was negotiating for Trusteeship of . The agreement being drafted between New Zealand and the Trustee Committee of the UNO was once again being conducted without reference to Samoan opinions.

After the bitter years of the Mau and the bright prospects of self-government promised by New Zealand before the war, it became obvious that Samoans had not gained as much as they had hoped. A petition was drawn up for presentation to the United Nations asking that Samoa become self-governing under a New Zealand protectorate (along the same lines as Britain and ). The petition also asked for the right for the people of Eastern and Western Samoa to renegotiate between themselves `the unnatural division of the Samoan group enforced by the three powers in the past without the consent of the

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Samoans'. The latter request reflected a division of opinion among Samoans. Some leaders argued that Western Samoa should become an American Trust Territory along with Eastern Samoa, and some that Western Samoa should become fully self-governing and seek re-unification with Eastern Samoa in the future. The response from the UNO was to send a mission to Samoa to study the situation. The UNO had no power on the question of Eastern Samoa since this colony had not been held by the USA under a mandate, but was the property of the US Government.

New Zealand was represented on the Trusteeship Council of the UNO and believed in the Trusteeship System, which had the declared objective of preparing Trust Territories for self-government or in-dependence. Despite its disastrous experiences in Samoa over the past 32 years and the very modest achievements it had made during this period, the New Zealand government was confident it could fulfil the role of Trustee in Samoa. Samoan opinion appeared to be optimistic that self-government would be achieved with New Zealand's guidance, or alternatively Samoan leaders may have been resigned to the reality of New Zealand's continuing role in Samoa.

The -UNO mission arrived in 1947 and received an enormous welcome from the Samoans and citizens of . Thousands of marchers turned out in Mau uniforms carrying banners with slogans about freedom, independence and self-government. Almost every-where the mission visited in the districts of Samoa, they were received by people wearing Mau uniforms. In contrast some Europeans expressed strong reservation about the capacity of the Samoans to govern themselves. The unifying voice of Ta'isi O.F. Nelson was lost; he had died in 1944. The Samoans and the Citizens Committee presented separate proposals.

The Samoan proposal was presented on behalf of the Fautua and the Faipule, the Samembers of the Legislative Council, the associate judges and district representatives. It requested self-government in which the Fautua were to be joint Heads of State with a Legislative Assembly or Parliament of 41 Samoan members and three or four European members. It recommended that the New Zealand representative in Samoa should be initially given the power of veto over the decisions of Parliament but should otherwise confine himself to the function of protector or Consul for foreigners. A Public Service Board was recommended to select local people, according to merit, for government positions. Temporary authority over branches of the Public Service would remain with heads of departments (who were then all New Zealanders) but Parliament would appoint Advisory Committees to the major departments with powers of expenditure. The other key

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proposal by the Samoans was that the lands of the New Zealand Reparation Estates be handed back to Samoa. The Citizens' Committee did not recommend such major changes - they wanted a transition period of ten years or longer before self-government. They proposed that during that period the Legislative Council be reorganized to include six official members, five Europeans and seven Samoans; that the education system be expanded; that locally recruited people be trained for the Public Service and finally that membership of the Fono a Faipule be recruited according to the distribution of population. During the visit of the mission there was a strong atmosphere of mistrust between Samoans and the Apia citizens on one hand and the New Zealand officials on the other. Each side was equally anxious that the other would have too much influence with UNO mission. The discussions resulting from the visit of the mission resulted in certain compromises of attitude, nevertheless. The UNO recommendation resulted in the Samoan Amendment Act of 1947, which incorporated reforms that were closer to the recommendations of the Citizens' Committee than those of the Samoans:

i. The New Zealand Administrator was re-designated High Com- missioner and the term Government of Western Samoa replaced that of Administration of Western Samoa. ii. A council of State was established consisting of the High Com- missioner and the Fautua who were Tupua Tamasese Mea'ole and Tanumafili II. iii. The 'Legislative Council' was re-designated as the 'Legislative Assembly'. It had eleven Samoan members elected by the Faipule, five European members elected by Europeans and six official members representing heads of departments, the head of government, the Attorney General, the Treasury and the Council of State. iv. The Assembly had wide powers in law-making but was subject to veto by the High Commissioner. On the 1st of June 1948 a new Samoan flag was raised beside the New Zealand flag to mark the establishment of the new system of government. A new High Commissioner, Mr G.R. Powles, replaced Governor Francis William Voelcker. The new Assembly was preceded by an election in which all residents of European status over the age of 21 could vote and each voter had a vote for each position to be filled. Two political parties contested the election, the United Citizens Party (which had been formed by the Citizens' Committee) and the Labour Party. The former secured 4 seats and the latter one seat, and all five members were part-Samoans. The electoral roll numbered 1,014 of which 819voted. The new members were E.R. Paul, J. HeIg, G.F.D. Betham, A. Stowers and W.F. Stowers.

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The Samoan members were selected through consultation and discussion among the Fono a Faipule and the Council of State. Among the Samoan members was Thomas George Nauer, who had taken the title Tofa and was known as Tofa Tomasi. He was among the first local Europeans to take Samoan status, along with Fonoti loane (John Brown). The legal distinction between 'native' and 'European' status had presented Samoan leaders with a political dilemma from the beginning of the century. For the majority of part-Samoans, the distinction between themselves and 'native' Samoans was not necessarily based upon race, but upon different rights and privileges. There were great differences in income, property and education among part-Samoans. Some were very wealthy, but many lived as modestly as 'native' Samoans, in Samoan fale on small pieces of land; in fact there were many 'native' Samoans who were better off economically. How-ever, part-Samoans classified as Europeans, had legal privileges which permitted them special political representation, the right to buy and consume alcohol, and rights of access to English-language schools; and from the late 1940s to secondary education in New Zealand. But if part-Samoans wanted to exercise the rights of 'native' Samoans to the authority of a matai title; to lack of legal liability as a debtor; to the use of customary land or to be a Samoan member of the Legislative Assembly; they had to forfeit their 'European' legal status. For some politicians, this presented many difficulties. Social barriers between Samoans and part-Samoans were marked by different ways of dressing and behaving, and those part-Samoans who tried to cross the barrier were often subjected to ridicule by other part-Samons and distrust by Samoans. In 1947 the term 'native' was substituted by the term 'Samoan' in official usage but the term 'European' continued to be applied to people of resident-alien status until 1961. The conflicting interests and the problems of resolution of the separate legal statuses of the two groups of Samoans was to continue to dominate Samoan politics during the 1940s and 1950s.

The Economy and Political Development

Another problem which faced Samoan leaders in the move towards independence was the question of economic self-reliance. From the 1860s the Samoan economy had become based upon the plantation mode of production and was dependent upon two major export crops, cocoa and copra. The plantation mode of production is characterized by an individual or corporate . investor, a relatively large acreage of land and the availability of cheap labour. In contrast the traditional Samoan mode of production was based upon corporate ownership of land,

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designed to protect and support the maximum number of people at subsistence level. Because of the generally low or fluctuating prices of tropical export crops on the world market, small-scale planting tends not to be profitable. It was, and still is, difficult for a grower with limited resources of land, investment capital and labour, to produce a surplus for export once he had met his own and his family's needs for food, clothing, housing, school fees, church donations etc. As a result the Samoans, although the largest land owners and the majority of the population, played a relatively minor role in the colonial economy of Samoa. A compromise between traditional and commercial agriculture was achieved by a few Samoans, notably the Va'ai family of Vaisala and Sataua.

Another economic obstacle to commercial agriculture among the Samoans is the cultural pressure to use scarce cash resources for consumption rather than for production. Thus, as many economists have noted, the surplus income (over and above subsistence) of the Samoans has tended to be chanelled into the construction of churches, pastor's houses and fa 'alavelave (exchanges of gifts on important occasions), rather than productive assets such as stores, public transport and agricultural development. It should be noted however, that the high value priced upon consumption among the Samoans reflected the high priority given to social and community cooperation and solidarity.

The transfer of the assets of the New Zealand Reparation Estate to the Samoan Government as the Western Samoan Trust Estates Co-operation (WSTEC) in 1957 was intended to provide revenue for the government of Western Samoa. At the time of the transfer of these estates they produced 12% of Samoa's cocoa export, 14 percent of its copra as well as supplying a number of other commodities for the local markets. The administrator, G.R. Powles, was dedicated to encouraging a stable central government for Western Samoa so that the political future of Western Samoa would be no longer uncertain. In this respect, he was very much ahead of his time, for in the early 1950s there was little thought of political independence among other colonial administrations in the South Pacific. Powles is quoted by Davidson as follows:

I formed the opinion long ago ... that the biggest obstacle to economic development in Samoa was political - that this obstacle consisted of poitical uncertainty, of suspicions of the political intentions of the Administering Authority, and a lack of confidence in the political future of Western Samoa (Davidson 1967: 316).

Perhaps the most difficult task of establishing an internationally recognized self-governing state of Western Samoa was the question of

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the form of government for Western Samoa. Those colonies in Africa and Asia which preceded Western Samoa in the attainment of their independence, had adopted constitutional models from advanced industrial societies such as those of Europe, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. By the mid 20th century, most of these nations had institutions such as universal sufferage, a code of civil rights and an ideology (if not an economic reality) of individual equality in law. These had become accepted as the norms to which newly independent states should conform when writing their constitutions. However, the majority of Samoan leaders wanted a form of government based upon traditional institutions. These institutions included the authority of matai, family ownership of land, and acknowledgment of the importance of chiefly titles and orator groups.

In his study of the Constitutional History of Samoa under the UN Mandate, Professor J.W. Davidson noted that during the 20th century increasing political authority was held by high ranking ali'i rather than by tulafale. While this is true, tulafale groups such as Tumua and Pule continued to be influential in the selection of district representatives, who in turn appointed national representatives. By the 1950s there were many new social and political status groups, as well as those of fa'a Samoa. Among the local Europeans there was a small, wealthy land-owning elite as well as a larger middle-income class and an even larger group of those who were not well-off financially. Education and property had also begun to create new kinds of social differences among the Samoans. The children of pastors and Samoan officials began to form a recognizable category of Samoan society who were among the first to receive advanced schooling in English and hold positions in the Public Service. Because it was felt that these new divisions in society would eventually lead to social and economic changes, there was hesitancy among many Samoans about whether an independent government could be based upon traditional Samoan institutions.

Five years after the new Legislative Assembly was establihed, a new Executive Council was appointed. The members included the Council of State; and three Samoan, one European and three official members of the Legislative Assembly. A comprehensive plan was also issued by New Zealand in English and Samoan for the future development of the country. This paved the way for a Constitutional Convention to decide what form of government an independent state of Western Samoa should have.

With independence now a definite goal for the early 1960s, an accelerated education programme was introduced for Samoan children. Prior to this there had only been restricted opportunities for

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Samoans to obtain a Western education in the English language and many of the established schools only catered to children with European and Chinese surnames. From 1949, New Zealand phased in primary in rural areas with accelerated education programmes at junior Secondary level at Malifa. In 1953 Samoa College was opened with 227 pupils. This school, together with the older schools of 'Avele, Vaipouli and some of the church schools, for the first time, enabled significant numbers of Samoans to have a secondary education. it should be noted for the preceding 60 years the majority of the Samoan population had been literate in Samoan, with basic training in Arithmetic and other skills, through the work of the village pastors schools. Furthermore, village pastors schools had been used as a model for the education of children and adults in Papua New Guinea and other parts of the Pacific. To this day the pastors' school model of education is remembered and admired for the contribution it made to village development in Samoa and elsewhere.

The Constitution of Western Samoa

The desire for independence was strong among the Samoans but not universal. Many local Europeans were worried about their status and future within the country and some leading Samoans were worried that the Samoan people lacked the education and skills they needed, and that the country had not achieved sufficient economic development for independence to be successful. The Constitutional Convention of 1954 tried to take account of all the different points of view in deciding upon the timing and the structure of an independent government. The joint-chairman of the Convention were the Fautua: Malietoa Tanumafili II and Tupua Tamasese Mea'ole, as well as 170 members who included the unofficial members of the Legislative Assembly, two additional representatives of each Faipule electorate, ten additional European representatives, the other two tama-a-'aiga, Mata'afa Faumuina Fame Malinu'u II and Tuimaleali'ifano Suatipatipa, and also representatives of other non-traditional local groups. Steering committees and working committees were established within the Convention. The decision by the Convention to move towards a ministerial cabinet government in 1960 and the appointment of joint Samoan Heads of State to replace the High Commissioner thereafter, were the most significant recommendations.

In 1957 a new Legislative Assembly was elected for a 3 year term; the Samoan members were chosen by the matai in 41 nominating districts or electorates. The decision was made to allow a secret ballot to be held in an electorate where there were two or more strongly

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supported candidates. Every matai had the right to vote. The expansion of the Legislative Assembly to include 41 Samoan members was accompanied by the abolition of the Fono a Faipule. In the new Assembly an elected speaker replaced the High Commissioner and the two Fautua. There were only two official members, the Attorney General and the Financial Secretary. The European elected members retained 5 seats as before. A new political parry called the `Citizens Progressive League' won 4 of these seats. The members of the Executive Council were called ministers, but the election of a Prime Minister from among the members of the Legislative Assembly was deferred to 1960. The Executive Council were:

E.F. Paul - who was leader of government business and minister for economic development, mariner services, Police and Prisons and Secretariat Department Tualaulelei M. - was Minister for Lands Tuatagaloa L.T. - Minister for Education and District Affairs Simaile To'omata L. - Minister for Health Fa'alava'au G. - Minister of Radio, Post Office and Broadcasting name F.M. II - Minister for Agriculture F.C.F. Nelson - Minister for Public Works and Road Transport In 1958 the Minister for Island Territories from New Zealand visited Western Samoa and a delegation composed of High Commissioner Powles, Mslietoa, Tupua and name attended a Trusteeship Council meeting of the United Nations. A Samoan Commissioner was appointed by New Zealand to the South Pacific Commission in Noumea; (he was Papali'li Poumau) and the following year, a working Committee on self-government was established. Two expert consultants were appointed to advise the committee on constitutional matters. They were Professor J.W. Davidson and Dr C.C. Aikman. A Bank of Western Samoa was also established in the same year, under joint ownership by the Bank of New Zealand, with 55% of the shares, and Western Samoa owning the remaining 45%.

In October 1959, a fully empowered cabinet was appointed by the authority of the Samoan Amendment Act. The Legislative Assembly chose Flame Mata'afa Faumuina Mulinu'U II as Prime Minister. He was a holder of a tama-a-'aiga title, and at the age of 38, one of the younger members of the Assembly. E.R. Paul, Tualaulelei Mauri, Tuatagaloa Leutele Te'o Simaile, Luamanuvae Eti (now Tofilau Eti), F.C.F. Nelson, 'Anapu Salofa and To'omata Lilomaiava Tua, were his ministers; Luafa'asaga Kalapu was elected Speaker. This new structure of

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government made Western Samoa self-governing, however, before termination of the UNO Trusteeship could be made final, a constitution had to be drafted. One of the most difficult constitutional questions was that of Fundamental Rights. This is a principle which has developed over the centuries in Western Europe, particularly in British Common Law, which has come to be an underlying principle of western legal systems. Unlike Samoan customary law, which places greater emphasis upon group or corporate rights, the concept of Fundamental Rights is aimed at the individual, irrespective of his or her status in society. To many people, the Samoan customary law did not give sufficient protection to the individual. This issue exposed a major philosophical difference between Western and Samoan ideas. in the former, legal recognition of individual rights was emphasized but in Samoan thought, the idea was `the greatest good for the greatest number'; in other words that if the interests of the group came into conflict with the interest of the individual, the interest of the group took priority.

The other concern about the Samoan system was that the rights and duties of matai are regulated by Samoan custom, the family and community rather than by the law. If matai were to legally represent the wishes of the Samoan people in a legally constituted government, the lack of legal controls over the matai raised the possibility that matai might misuse their authority. This question was extensively debated by the framers of the constitution. Although a restricted matai franchise was adopted, provisions were made for the rights of freedom of movement and religion.

In order to resolve the sufferage issue the Constitution provided for two categories of electors for the approximately 6,000 local Europeans and 100,000 Samoans. Samoans were to be represented by registered matai, but an individual voters role allowed for Europeans. Thus a proportion of parliamentary seats were to be held by the elected representatives of those people formerly classified as resident aliens or Europeans. The number of seats was to be determined by an Electoral Commissioner appointed by the Head of State every five or six years, in proportion to the number of enrolled voters. The privilege of individual sufferage was balanced by the requirement that a person taking a matai title along with his family becomes ineligible for the individual voters role and is thereafter classified as a Samoan voter. Those entitled to have their names on the individual voters roll were: (b) persons whose names were included on the European roll on the 31st December 1961.

(a) persons who ar e the children of fathers whose names were included in, or who if then alive would have qualified to have

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their names included in the European roll. (c) persons who acquire citizenship of Western Samoa by naturalisation. (d) persons who are citizens of Western Samoa by birth and who are the children of fathers who are not citizens of Western Samoa or of fathers who, if alive, would not have automatically qualified to be citizens of Western Samoa.

These provisions removed the distinctions based on racial categories of 'Europeans' and 'Samoans' and replaced them with a more realistic distinction between those who could and could not be represented by matai. Accordingly, it was recommended that only citizens of Western Samoa be permitted to hold matai titles and that eligibility to hold matai titles be restricted to those related to Samoan land-owning families or persons declared eligible by the Lands and Titles Court. In order to ensure due regard for the fundamental rights of the Samoan people, a plebiscite, supervised by a United Nations Commissioner, was held in May 1 9 6 1 in which Samoans were asked two questions:

1. Do you agree with the Constitution adopted by the Constitutional Convention on the 28th of October 1960? 2. Do you agree that on the first January 1962 Western Samoa should become an independent state on the basis of that Constitution? The results of the plebiscite were: Question 1: Yes: 31,426 (83%) No: 4,909 (13%) Informal: 1,562 (4%) Question 2, Yes: 29,862 (79%) No: 5,108 (15%) Informal: 2,907 (8%) Total votes cast: 37,897 Total population: 114,427 (1961 census) Davidson observed that: In the majority of Samoan villages the proportion of (opposing) votes was well below the overall average. Apart from and Saleaula, the centres of Tumua and Pule conformed to the general picture. Even Lufilufi, where a spokesman had earlier threatened solid opposition because of the non-recognition of Tumua and Pule, was no exception. On the other hand at polling booths where a substantial proportion of the voters would have been local Europeans - some in the Apia town area and those at Lotopa and Aleisa - negative answers represented between 20% and 35% of valid votes. The most striking of the negative votes recorded in Samoan villages were those at Lotofaga in Safata, Malie in lagaga and Vaisala, Sataua and Papa in Vausigano. Lotofaga, alone in the whole of Samoa, recorded a majority against in-dependence and only a slight majority in favour of the Constitution. Malie recorded a 47% vote against the Constitution and one of 32% against independence. The combined figures for Vaisala, Sataua and

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Papa showed a negative vote of 40% to both questions. At Saleaula ana at Falealupo the proportion of negative votes was only a tittle lower.

In 1961 General Elections were held and in 18 Samoan constituencies members were elected by secret ballot. In the remaining 23 a single candidate was nominated. In 1957 only 10 secret ballots had been held. The Legislative Assembly nominated Hama Mata'afa without opposition. Tualaulelei had died and Eugene Paul and Luamanuvae Eti had both retired from politics (Luamanuvae (now Tofilau) 'Eti had decided to go to to train as a pastor. He was later to change his mind and re-enter politics); they were replaced by G.F.D. Betham, Tufuga Fatu and `Asiata Lagolago.

In many significant respects the major provisions of the constitution closely resembled the representations made by Samoan leaders to the United Nations visiting mission in 1947 and indeed those advocated by leaders of the Mau in the 1920s. Perhaps the only major Samoan institution unrecognized by the constitution was Tum ga and Pule. However, the electoral system enabled them, or at least did not hinder them, from playing an important role in modern Samoan politics.

Samoa was the first Pacific Island country to become independent and has provided a model for other states in its recognition of traditional institutions, its provision for people outside that system who wished to become citizens and the peaceful and orderly processes of government since 1962.

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