The council sent a delegation to Sāmoa, led by Harvard law professor Francis B Sayre and Chilean politician Eduardo Cruz-Coke. The third man was an unusual choice, Pierre Ryckmans, a former governor general of the Belgian Congo. It represented the extreme of colonialism. The trio produced a critical report, saying they had heard testimony on the ‘most deep-seated grievance… the privileged situation accorded to Europeans. Again and again witnesses gave instances of Europeans being preferred over Sāmoans in matters of pay, in matters of advancement, in appointments, in treatment accorded in hospitals or schools.’ They summed up the Sāmoan view thus: ‘The whites behave as masters and treat us as an inferior race, and this in our own country, Sāmoa…’ It said there was a ‘natural desire’ by Sāmoans to control their own country after a century of control by outsiders. Yes, it was part of a global movement for nationalism, but Sāmoans had grievances against the rule they had experienced under New Zealand. They listed the disturbances including those against the Germans, the Mau and the unpopular measures New Zealand had imposed on them. In evidence and song the mission had heard ‘we want to be free; we want self-government because it is our birthright’ and ‘we want roads, and schools, and health – more than what New Zealand has given us.’
Most Sāmoans, except in Faleālili, had received the UN mission wearing Mau uniforms. Europeans, including missionaries, businessmen and government, opposed immediate self-government: ‘Several full Europeans expressed great scepticism as to the ability of the Sāmoans to assume the full responsibilities of Government without a very prolonged period of change and development.’ The report was relentless in asserting the national identity and distinctive characteristics of Sāmoans: ‘They possess a language of their own and an indigenous culture fitted to the conditions of life in their isolated islands. They also have a traditional political organisation which, though undergoing substantial changes, is still largely intact.’ It was different from the Western form and philosophy of government, but self-government should not be delayed because of that. Only ‘dramatic movement’ towards self-government would work: ‘The risks of trouble for Sāmoa and the New Zealand Government, and for the Trusteeship Council, are greater if much is withheld than if much is given. Too parsimonious a measuring out of self-government would be worse than nothing.’
Over 30 years the school system had failed to produce a group of leaders possessing the high professional and technical skills necessary for self-government.
The trusteeship mission called for an end to the title of ‘administrator’ and the beginnings of a government of Western Sāmoa. Voelcker started as the last administrator and became the first high commissioner. Sāmoans, Voelcker said, were 'definitely a backward people with an over-weaning conceit and sense of their own importance'. They had 'the most extraordinarily twisted minds' that he had met among any native people; political intrigue was 'their very life-blood'.
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