Whizz of the bullets

Invincible Strangers 39 Chapter 17.2

At the end of 1926 Richardson and Ta’isi drew their lines. Richardson hosted a New Year’s Eve party for 200 officials. The Samoa Times reported that the affair was ‘brilliantly illuminated with electric globes of diversified colour.’ Dancing and feasting was so remarkable that ‘by unanimous opinion, the function was set down as being one of the most enjoyable ever held at Vailima’. Just over four kilometres west and separated by the 420-metre-high Mount Vaea, another bigger party was underway at Ta’isi’s mansion. It was a bigger gathering that was entertained with fireworks. They could be seen at Vailima.

New Zealand politicians, media and public were indifferent to Sāmoa. What they heard usually was that things were going well. Only Labour Party leader Harry Holland questioned Richardson’s ‘temperamental unfitness’ for the job.

 On the Ides of March 1927 Richardson came up with the Maintenance of Authority in Native Affairs Ordinance, making it a crime for Sāmoans to ‘intrigue or endeavour to undermine the authority of or to excite disaffection against any Native Authority’. Punishment was £100 (NZ$9500 in 2017) and up to a year in jail.

‘New Zealand’s record in dealing with the native races, and I hope my record also should be sufficient to show who are the real champions of the native race,’ Richardson told his rubber stamping Legislative Council.