Pacific’s white autocrat & Rin Tin Tin

Invincible Strangers 36 Chapter 16.1

 ‘A streak of yellow paint,’ the general commanded, ‘…is spreading down over the Pacific.’

New Zealand’s political and military clique (Massey, suffering terminal cancer, was absent, sending apologies) had gathered at a Wellington club and applauded Major General George Spafford Richardson, 55, newly appointed administrator of Sāmoa. Chinese labourers in Sāmoa had to be sent home, he said. The yellow paint, polluting and adulterating the British and other races, was ‘gradually creeping down from Asia, through the Philippines, Hawai'i and various islands, and of which we have touches already in this country.’ If steps were not taken quickly Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific would be very different from what we wished it to be. Solicitor General William MacGregor congratulated Richardson for becoming ‘the uncrowned king of Sāmoa.’ Richardson, taking on the white man’s burden, would ‘prove to be one of the great pro-consuls of our scattered Empire.’ The adulation would not swell his head, Richardson replied. He would act according to the highest British traditions. He would show the ‘natives of Sāmoa’ what white New Zealanders had done for Māori ‘to convince them that it was New Zealand’s aim to do as much and more … for the people of Sāmoa.’

Richardson with two Sāmoan children while holding Union Jack. NZ flag was seldom used. National Library of NZ