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
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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 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
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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 Commissioner 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.
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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 4 1 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
Tualaulelei M.
Tuatagaloa L.T.
Simaile
To'omata L.
Fa'alava'au G.
name F.M. II
F.C.F. Nelson
- who was leader of government business and
minister for
economic
development,
mariner
services, Police and
Prisons and
Secretariat
Department
- was Minister for Lands
- Minister for Education and District Affairs
-
Minister
Minister
Minister
Minister
for Health
of Radio, Post Office and Broadcasting
for Agriculture
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 are 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 Malie 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 1 9 6 1 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 Malua 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
g
the constitution was Tum a 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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