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The Revolt of the Samoans

Power to Punish Europeans in Samoa

Power to Punish Europeans in Samoa

Repeatedly the Administrator deemed it necessary to say that he was handicapped through having no power to punish European offenders. The same assertion was made more than once in the New Zealand Parliament. The statement was wholly without foundation, as a glance at the various enactments affecting Samoa under our rule will demonstrate.

New Zealand first administered Samoa under the Samoa Constitution Order, 1919, and the Treaties of Peace Acts of 1919 and 1920. In 1921 the Samoa Act (really a re-enactment of the Samoa Constitution Order) was passed by the New Zealand Legislature. Sections 100 and 101 of this Act provide the usual penalties for treason and inciting to mutiny; and section 102 decrees a penalty of two years' imprisonment for sedition, which is interpreted as exciting disaffection against the Parliament or Government of New Zealand or against the Government of Samoa, exciting ill-will between different classes of the people, inciting to lawnessness and violence, or attempting to procure changes in the laws, government, or constitution of Samoa other than by lawful means. So that there was ample power to punish any European guilty of any breach of the law in this direction.

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The 1921 Act conferred on the Governor-General-in-Council power to make regulations for the government of Samoa; but it gave no power to make Orders-in-Council empowering the deportation (without trial) of the political opponents of the Government.