William Massey by James Watson

Author:James Watson [Watson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Australia & Oceania, Biography & Memoir, Political
ISBN: 9781907822193
Google: Mn_ijwEACAAJ
Publisher: Haus Publishing
Published: 2011-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

Samoa

The first issue of prime importance to New Zealand, the disposal of Germany’s colonies, came up early at the Peace Conference. Woodrow Wilson envisaged that all such colonies should become mandates under the League of Nations rather than simply possessions of the powers that occupied them. When ex-President William Howard Taft publicly advocated such a policy, it was attacked by supporters of Massey’s Government as ‘preposterous … absurd and impracticable’.26

Massey joined with Hughes and with Botha of South Africa in rejecting proposals for League of Nations control over the Pacific Islands and South-West Africa. In discussions on the Supreme Council (‘The Council of Ten’ – Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of the ‘Big Four’ and Japan) on 24 January, it was rapidly decided that the colonies would not be returned to Germany. Lloyd George, who had placed the item on the agenda, expressed support for the annexation of the German territories occupied by Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, but left it to their leaders to argue their cases against control by the League of Nations.

Massey spoke last. Unlike Hughes and Botha he did not specifically call for annexation to the occupying Dominion, preferring instead the ambiguous formulation that the island [sic] should be allowed to remain under British control. Possibly fearing that the Americans would press for some sort of condominium over Western Samoa, with themselves as one of the powers entrusted with its care, Massey referred to what he saw as the failure of the British-French condominium in the New Hebrides. He argued that his call for annexation was based on the strategic importance of Western Samoa to New Zealand and represented a reward for its sacrifices in wartime. He maintained that ‘a confidential plebiscite was taken by the New Zealand administration among the Samoan chiefs and native leaders’ and that it revealed ‘an overwhelming preference in favour of British rule and condemnation of the Germans’.27 This information seems to have been given to him before he left New Zealand. When Massey was in London to attend the Imperial Conference in 1918, he had received a letter from Allen commenting on an address given by Western Samoans to their Administrator, Colonel Robert Logan, when he was made a Companion of the Bath. Allen declared that ‘The address leaves no room for doubt as to the genuineness of their desire to remain under our flag.’28 Logan had then reported in December 1918 that the chiefs there were ‘unanimous’ in their support for British rule.29 In the circumstances this would have been interpreted as New Zealand rule.

There had been causes for discontent during the war. The diversification of Western Samoa’s agricultural production begun by the Germans had been stopped in favour of dependence on copra, and the existing commercial estates were seized and allowed to run down. Taxes were increased to pay for an expanding bureaucracy and recognition of local customs and customary authorities was reduced. However, the most authoritative text dealing with the experience of wartime Western Samoa concludes that a majority of the population did favour continued ‘British’ rule in late 1918.

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