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 New Zealand was negotiating for Trusteeship of Samoa. 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 Tonga). 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 147 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 Apia. 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 148 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 Malietoa 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. 149 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, 150 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.