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Samoa on the World Stage: Petitions and Peoples before the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 40; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03086534.2012.697612

1743-9329

Susan Pedersen,

European Political History Analysis

Abstract One of the innovative aspects of the mandates system of the League of Nations, the oversight regime applied to the former German and Ottoman territories seized by the Allied Powers in the First World War, was that it included a right of petition. Inhabitants of any territory governed under mandate, or any interested outsider, could petition the League of Nations if they believed that the stipulations laid down in Article 22 of the League Covenant or in particular mandate texts were being violated. This article explores the origins, development, politics and scope of the practice of petitioning under the mandates system, arguing that it was much more significant, extensive and consequential than has previously been recognised. Petitions rarely offered petitioners redress; instead, they made visible the assumptions about racial and civilisational hierarchies, and the realities of power, on which the system was based. Yet petitions were not only revelatory of political relations but also altered those relations in turn, as petitioners used the opportunity of appeal to learn the skills of claim-making, international lobbying and political mobilisation. The article looks closely at one dramatic case—that of the mass movement against New Zealand's administration of the mandated territory Western Samoa in the late 1920s, which involved numerous petitions to the League—to illustrate these points. Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to Peter Carter for his assistance retrieving relevant documents from the New Zealand Archives. I also thank Ralph Austen, Tom Ertman, Christopher Hilliard, Peter Mandler, Mark Mazower, Sam Moyn, Bernard Wasserstein and the reviewers for the JICH for their comments, and Anique van Ginneken for generously sharing her research on the petition process of the mandates system. Notes Samoan Petition of 9 March 1928, League of Nations Archives, Geneva (LNA), Box R2322, 6A/2967/709. For the minorities system, see especially Fink, Defending the Rights of Others; Schot, Nation oder Staat?; Raitz von Frentz, A Lesson Forgotten; Gütermann, Das Minderheitenschutzverfahren des Völkerbundes; and in particular Scheuermann, Minderheitenschutz contra Konfliktverhütung?, which provides a comprehensive survey of all petitions taken to the Minorities Commission in the 1920s. The only comprehensive study of petitioning under the mandates system is found in A. H. M. Van Ginneken's 1992 dissertation 'Volkenbondsvoogdij' although Michael Callahan also pays close attention to petitions in his meticulous two-volume study of the African 'B' mandates; see, Callahan, Mandates and Empire and A Sacred Trust. Aleksandar Momirov exploits Van Ginneken's research to compare petitioning under the mandates and the United Nations trusteeship systems in his useful article, 'The Individual Right to Petition in Internationalized Territories'. Balakrishnan Rajagopal argues for the precedent-setting and deradicalising effects of the PMC's petition process in International Law from Below, esp. 67–71. Briefly, the 'A' mandates were Syria/Lebanon (awarded to France),and Iraq and Palestine/Transjordan (awarded to Britain). Most of German Africa became 'B' mandates, with Togo and Cameroon both divided between Britain and France, Ruanda/Urundi carved out of Tanganyika and handed over to Belgium, and Tanganyika awarded to Britain. A set of territories too remote for the European powers to care much about and now occupied by Japan and Britain's dominions were designated as 'C' mandates, with South African control confirmed in South West Africa, Australian control in German New Guinea, New Zealand in Western Samoa, Japan in Germany's Pacific Islands north of the Equator and British Empire control (exercised by Australia) in Nauru. Numerous works trace the founding of the mandates system. Early, and still valuable accounts, are: Miller, The Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 2, 194–228; Wright, Mandates under the League of Nations; Hall, Mandates, Dependencies and Trusteeship. The best modern treatment remains Wm. Roger Louis, 'The United Kingdom and the Beginning of the Mandates System'. Those early circulated documents are accessible through the microfilm collection titled League of Nations Documents and Publications produced by Research Publications in 1973, but for the protests against the Anglo-French occupations and the San Remo decisions by King Hussein of the Hedjaz, see especially, Alkhazragi, 'Un Petit Prince à la SDN'. For the Samoa petition, see 'A Humble Prayer to His Majesty George V. King of Great Britain & Ireland from the Government Councilors of British Samoa who Represent all the Districts and All the Natives of Western Samoa', 16 July 1921, Archives New Zealand (ANZ), ACHK 16603, G48/33, S/8. The PMC discussed the need for a procedure to deal with petitions at their very first session; see, PMC, Minutes, 4–8 Oct. 1921, 22–23. Ibid. Ormsby-Gore had spent part of the war years in Cairo with the Arab Bureau, had been the staff liaison for the Zionist mission to Palestine, sympathised—genuinely if incompatibly—with both Arab and Zionist national aspirations, and worried that Britain was letting both populations down; for which, see, National Library of Wales, Brogyntyn Records, PEC 10/1011, Ormsby-Gore to his mother, 13 Oct. 1919. 'Submission to the League of Nations of Petitions from Inhabitants of Mandated Territories: Memorandum by the British Representative on Procedures to be Adopted', 24 July 1922, League of Nations Archives, Geneva (LNA), Box R60, 1/22099/22099. For French resistance, see PMC, Minutes, 2nd sess., 1–11 Aug. 1922, 15. For revelations of South African behaviour, see Records of the 3rd Assembly, vol. 1, Minutes, Plenary session, 20 Sept. 1922, 156. For the Council decision, see minutes of the 23rd session of the Council, first and fifth meetings, 29 and 31 Jan. 1923, League of Nations Official Journal 4, no. 3 (1923), 200–01, 211. Theodoli was already making decisions about 'receivability' in 1924; see, for example, his report to the Commission in PMC, Minutes, 4th session, 24 June–8 July 1924, 146. This practice was, however, confirmed and made explicit during the Commission's discussion of petitions in 1925; see PMC, Minutes, 7th sess., 19–30 Oct. 1925, 133; CPM 558 (1), 'Summary of the Procedure to be Followed in the Matter of Petitions Concerning Mandated Territories', Annex 4 in PMC, Minutes, 12th sess., 24 Oct.–11 Nov. 1927, 176–78. It is worth noting that the PMC explicitly declined to follow the lead of the minorities regime and exclude petitions couched in 'violent language'. For that rule, see Jane Cowan, 'Who's afraid of violent language?'. For Catastini, see, Albrecht-Carrié, 'Italian Colonial Problems in 1919'. PMC, Minutes, 8th sess., 16 Feb.–6 March 1926, 165–66. In 1924 Togolese petitioners likewise reported to the Anti-Slavery Society that the French High Commissioner had threatened them with immediate deportation should they renew their protest; for which see, Rhodes House (Oxford), Anti-Slavery Society Papers, G403, Henry Kau Gaba to Sir John Harris, 14 June 1924. For the case of the Syrian delegation, see PMC, Minutes, 8th sess., 16 Feb.–6 March 1926, 156–60; for Lugard's reservations, see CPM 405, 'Note by Sir Frederick Lugard on the procedure with regard to memorials or petitions', 15 May 1926, 5, LNA, Box R60, 1/51258/22099. This report and a second by Rappard were also published as Annexes 2 and 3 to the minutes of the next PMC session, at which the subject of hearing petitioners was exhaustively discussed; see PMC, Minutes, 9th sess., 8–25 June 1926, 47–50, 52–56, 189–93. Minutes of the 41st session of the Council, 3rd meeting, 3 Sept. 1926, League of Nations Official Journal 7, no. 10 (1926): 1233–35; also, for this entire episode, see Callahan, Mandates and Empire, 123–29. See the extensive clippings in LNA, Box R52, File 1/55141/16466, especially 'The League and the Mandates', Indian Social Reformer, 18 Sept. 1926; 'Quarreling about Mandates', Washington Post, 8 Sept. 1926; and comments by the former German colonial governor Heinrich Schnee, in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 26 Sept. 1926. Callahan covers the British mobilisation to protect the PMC thoroughly in Mandates and Empire, 126–29. For one case of Theodoli interrogating de Caix about missing petitions, see PMC, Minutes, 11th sess., 20 June–6 July 1927, 18, 163; for the Dutch member Van Rees asking for similar information, see PMC, Minutes, 12th sess., 24 Oct.–11 Nov., 1927, pp. 62–3. Van Ginneken presents comprehensive statistics about the source, subject, treatment and publication of all petitions in her dissertation 'Volkenbondsvoogdij', 211–17. For that lobbying, see Hoffmann, Die Syro-Palästinensische Delegation and Pedersen, 'The Impact of League Oversight'. Natasha Wheatley provides an insightful analysis of how the practice and legal framework of the petition process shaped Arab and Jewish claims about Palestine in 'On the Meaning of the Palestine Mandate'. The origins and fate of the Bund and Douala petitions are traced in Callahan, Mandates and Empire, 149–54, and Sacred Trust, 48–52. Lawrance pays attention to the activism of the Bund across two decades in Locality, Mobility, and 'Nation', Ch. 5, and Andreas Eckert discusses the Duala petitions in Die Duala und die Kolonialmächte; see also, Joseph, 'The Royal Pretender'. For which, see Dedering, 'Petitioning Geneva', Journal of Southern African Studies; also Britz et al., A Concise History of the Rehoboth Basters until 1990. I discuss these petitions briefly in Pedersen, 'Getting out of Iraq—in 1932'. For the Nauruan protests, see Thompson, 'Edge of Empire', and, for conflicts in British Togo, Lawrance, 'Bankoe v. Dome'. Jonathan Derrick recovers the work of a number of fascinating and near-forgotten African activists (and sometime petitioners) in Africa's 'Agitators'. Petitions from both organisations from the early 1920s, most of which were simply rejected without report, can be found in LNA, Boxes R39, R41, R60, R2344, R4123. Bartlett to Catastini, 12 May 1927, enclosing Rowe to Bartlett, 29 April 1927, LNA, Box R32, 1/59448/9597. Bartlett to Catastini, 3 June 1927, enclosing Westbrook to Bartlett, 2 May 1927, LNA, Box R32, File 1/59888/9597. Buxton to Secretary of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 19 July 1927, in ibid., File 1/60890/9597. Theodoli mentioned the 1921 petition in the PMC, Minutes, 12th sess., 24 Oct.–11 Nov. 1927, 123, so its contents were known to the Commission by that time. Ibid., 105–08, 111, 127. Ibid., Annex 9, 'Reports on Petitions', 195–97, and Annex 10, 'Report to the Council on the Work of the 12th session of the Permanent Mandates Commission', 203. See 'The Maintenance of Authority in Native Affairs (No. 2) Ordinance', 1928, published in the Supplement to the Western Samoa Gazette, no. 74, 21 Feb. 1928, and Legislative Council Debates, 21 Feb. 1928, both in LNA, R2321, 6A/709/709, jacket 1. The second petition from the Anti-Slavery Society, dated 8 June 1928, is in LNA Box R2322, 6A/2713/709; those from Nelson, dated 29 March 1928, and the 8,000 Samoans, submitted 23 April 1928, are in R2322, 6A/2967/709. Meleisea, The Making of Modern Samoa, 1; see also his Change and Adaptations in Western Samoa. A positive reading of the work of this Land Commission (which certainly disallowed more claims than it allowed) is given by J.W. Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa, 64–65; for caveats, see Meleisea, Making, 44–45. On German paternalism in Samoa, see Wareham, Race and Realpolitik, 31–63; Steinmetz, 'The Uncontrollable Afterlives of Ethnography'. On the 'half-Castes', see especially Salesa, 'Half-Castes between the Wars'; Meleisea, Making, Ch. 7; for the German period, Wareham, Race, Ch. 5. For the military administration, see Boyd, 'Military Administration of Western Samoa'; Meleisea, Making, 102–25; Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa, 93. For the loss of the Faipules, see Meleisea, Making, 121; for Nelson, see ibid., 174–75; Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa, 94. Boyd, 'Military Administration', 161–64. 'Meeting with Faipules: Mulinu'u, Saturday, 16 July 1921', ANZ, ACHK 16603, G48/33, S/8. 'A Humble Prayer to His Majesty George V. King of Great Britain & Ireland from the Government Councilors of British Samoa who Represent all the Districts and All the Natives of Western Samoa', 16 July 1921, in ibid. Prime Minister's Office to Governor General, 24 Aug. 1921; Governor General to Churchill, 26 Aug. 1921; Churchill to Governor General, 4 Nov. 1921, all in ibid. A fair amount has been written on Richardson's administration and the consolidation of the Mau. Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa, and Meleisea, Making, provide detailed accounts, although Davidson concentrates more on the political conflict with New Zealand and Meleisea more on its social impact. For a narrative account, with many interesting photographs, see Field, Mau. The three paragraphs above draw on all three works, but the growing reservations in Wellington about Richardson can be traced only through the confidential telegrams exchanged between Richardson and the minister of external affairs and between the commodore of the ships sent to Apia and the secretary of the navy in Wellington. Although the Wellington government sent the ships, they stressed their anxiety about any use of force and insisted that Richardson's every move be cleared by Wellington. By the end of February, the commodore was convinced that the conflict could not 'be settled under any circumstances by the present Administrator'. See Commodore to Naval Secretary, 29 Feb. 1928, ANZ, ACHK 16603, G48/37. Dimier, '"L'internationalisation" du débat colonial', Le gouvernement des colonies, chs 7–9; for a brief English survey, Dimier, 'Direct or Indirect Rule'. Extensive reports to the State Department from consular officials in Western Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand, as well as from successive governors of American Samoa, can be found in US National Archives, College Park, Microfilm M336, series 826m.00. The warning mentioned above is from Governor Stephen Graham to the secretary of the navy, 29 June 1929, forwarded by the Navy to the State Department, 862m.00/48. Gilchrist, Memo for the Secretary General, 24 Feb. 1928, and note by Drummond, 27 Feb. 1928, LNA, R2322, 6A/2090/709. John Roberts (solicitor) to Marquis Theodoli, 15 June 1928, regretting Theodoli's letter of 13 June denying an audience, LNA, R2322, File 6A/875/709, jacket 1. PMC, Minutes, 13th sess., 12–29 June 1928, 122, 125, 130, 134–35. Ibid., 116–18. Ibid., 119. Ibid., 136. Ibid. Ibid., 153. 'Report on the Work of the 13th session of the Commission, submitted to the Council of the League of Nations', annex 7, in ibid., 229–30. Buxton and Harris to Secretary General, 8 June 1928, reproduced as CPM 739, LNA, Box R2322, 6A/2713/709. Richardson to Parr, 2 July 1928, and Coates to Drummond, 27 Sept. 1928, ANZ, IT1, EX1/63, pt. 1. 'Petitions dated July 19, 1927 and June 8, 1928, from the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society: Report by Mr. Kastl', CPM 762, LNA, R2322, 6A/2713/709. With regard to the Society's first petition about the alleged deportation of native chiefs, the Commission simply reported that the chiefs had been banished but not deported from the territory, and that banishment was allowable by law. J. V. Wilson to Drummond, 10 June 1927; Note by Drummond, 11 June 1927; Gilchrist to Catastini, 14 June 1927; Catastini to Drummond, 18 June 1927; Drummond to Catastini, 21 June 1927; all in LNA, R32, 1/29778/9597. Coates to Secretary General, 13 Sept. 1927, LNA, R32, 1/59448/9597. This material is in LNA, R2322, 6A/2712/709. 'The Petition of Olaf Frederick Nelson of Apia', 29 March 1928, quoted at paragraph 42, LNA, Box R2322, 6A/2967/709. 'Report on the Work of the 13th session of the Commission, submitted to the Council of the League of Nations', annex 7, in ibid., 229–30. Coates to Secretary General, 24 April 1928, and 'Comment of General Sir George Richardson on the Petition of Certain Natives of the Territory', CPM 742 (14 June 1928), both in LNA, R2323, 6A/4398/709. PMC, Minutes, 13th sess, 12–29 June 1928, 196. PMC, Minutes, 16th sess., 6–26 Nov. 1929, 113–14. O. F. Nelson, Samoa at Geneva: Misleading the League of Nations (Auckland, 1928), and A Petition to Geneva: The Hon. O.F. Nelson again Appeals (Auckland, 1930), LNA, Box R2322, 6A/875/709. Lugard, Report on petitions by Nelson, CPM 1161 (12 Nov. 1931) in ibid. Taisi [O.F. Nelson], What the Samoans Want (1930), in ibid. This is a point made by Meleisea, Making, 156, 175–76, 179. For the 1934 legislation and its amendment in 1938, see PMC, Minutes, 35th sess., 24 Oct.–8 Nov. 1938, 160, 162. I discuss this language in more detail in Pedersen, 'Metaphors of the Schoolroom'. PMC, 16th sess., 6–26 Nov. 1929., 115 (for Parr), 118 (for Rappard), 122 (for Dannevig). There are a number of accounts of this event, including Davidson, Samoa mo Samoa, 137–39. Government response to the killings can be followed through the Wellington archives, cited below. Telegram, External Affairs to Administrator (Apia), 31 Dec. 1929, ANZ, ACHK 16603, G48/37, S/17. 'Telegram, dated January 2, 1930, from the New Zealand Government, relating to the riot which occurred at Apia on December 28th, 1929', C.5.M.2.1030.VI (6 Jan. 1930), and 'Telegrams dated January 28th and February 5, 1930, from the New Zealand Government relating to the riot which occurred at Apia on December 28th, 1929', C.125.M.43.1930.VI (6 Feb. 1930), both in LNA, BOX R2323, File 6A/16670/709. Allen's calumny is in Administrator to External Affairs, 3 April 1930, ANZ, ACHK 16603, G48/37, S/17. For the petition and the Mandates Commission's response, see LNA, Box R2324, File 6A/23388/709. Petition from the Rev. A. John Greenwood, LNA, R2323, 6A/20424/709; correspondence with C. W. Owen, LNA, R2324, 6A/25086/709; appeal by Hon E. A. Ransom, LNA R2324, 6A/23938/709; petition from Edwin William Gurr and William Cooper, LNA R2324, 6A/23937/709. For the Labour Party position, see Brown, Rise of New Zealand Labour, 127. 'Samoan Petition, 1931', LNA R2324, 6A/32498/709. C. A. Berendsen explained the government's new policy to the PMC at the 30th session in 1936; see PMC, Minutes, 30th sess., 27 Oct.–11 Nov. 1936, 108–12. PMC, Minutes, 28th sess., 17 Oct.–2 Nov. 1935, 145, 146, 149. PMC, Minutes, 30th sess., 27 Oct.–11 Nov. 1936, 108-126, 212; and see Rhodes House (Oxford), Lugard Papers 139/1, Hailey to Lugard, 4 Nov. 1936. I am drawing here on Meleisea, who argues that Samoans' persistent claims for independence were the result not of a commitment to any new system but rather of a rooted preference for their own functional and well-understood system of dispersed power. Davidson and other historians, he argues, have failed to appreciate that periods in which the colonial government did very little were in fact that periods that most advanced that cause, since the Samoans were not seeking and did not require new institutions and profited from such neglect to recover control of matters they had always wished to keep in their own hands. See Meleisea, Making, 151–54. 'A Samoan National Protest voiced at Vaimoso on March the 5th, 1930, by High Chief Tuimaleali'ifano', in The Samoan Massacre: December 28th, 1929 (Tasmania, 1930), LNA, R 2324, 6A/25086/709.