Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

VIII.

CONVICTS AND POLICE.

THERE are times in life when one should be allowed four hands, two brains, and sustained insomnia. There was a great deal to do, and the sun, unmindful of the political importance of Tonga, would not stand still. I was threatened with lawsuits by merchants in New Zealand, who wanted me to recognise ruinous verbal contracts alleged to have been made with my predecessor; the British ViceConsul was remonstrating with me for demanding rent from a British subject who claimed the fee-simple of the land he occupied; the courts were playing football with the law; the police were trampling airily on the rights of private property; the convicts walked the town with all the liberty and twice the assurance of free men; and the Europeans had resuscitated the defunct Chamber of Commerce, and were for once united in a determination to embarrass the Government. The Treasury and Customs, it was true, were safe in the hands of my able second; but Baker's accounts were crying to be audited, and if I were to relax my vigilance among my native colleagues, they were sure to fall out with me and with each other.

And with all this we knew that our enemies were busy in Vavau trying to sow distrust of us in the mind of the king.

Of all non-financial departments in the public service, the Prison was that which called first for reform. The jail was a wooden building fitted with tiny cells, so illventilated that to confine any person in them for many hours would be dangerous. In practice, only persons just arrested were confined there pending their trial: convicts were not confined at all. It was the most economical penal system in the world, for the convicts had to lodge, feed, and clothe themselves. A man sentenced to a fine of £20 must work for the Government for 400 days (his daily task being valued at 1s.) He might live at home, and work for the Government during the daytime: his sentence was counted by working days only, and did not include Sundays, nor days too wet to allow of work. The same rule applied to convicts sentenced to penal servitude. An original sentence of two years would be lengthened by sickness or wet weather to nearly three years, for it meant 730 days' labour. He could take a few holidays here and there when he pleased; but if he absented himself for many days in succession, he would receive a domiciliary visit from the head jailer. If he had a horse and cart, the loan of it to the Government, when the steamer was in, would reduce the sentence at the rate of 4s. a-day. The prisoners were variously employed. Some were the household servants of the king and the Cabinet Ministers-my seat in the Cabinet entitled me to two; others formed the crew of the Government vessels; others were stationed at the pilot station

THE SOCIAL PRESTIGE OF CONVICTS.

107

on an island in the bay; but the majority lived upon the Government banana plantations. All alike were free to sleep where they pleased, and, if their homes were at a distance, were obliged to beg or steal their food. The female prisoners, who were generally in trouble for social offences, might be seen any day weeding the public squares; while their brown babies, oblivious of the fact that they had no right to exist, rolled about in the shade of the nearest tree. As a natural consequence of such a system, there was not only no disgrace attaching to imprisonment, but, since the beginning of the Church quarrels, there was even a certain cachet in being one of the goodly company of ministers of the Church and men of rank in trouble for their religious views.

Let it not be supposed that so great a legislator as Mr Baker had forgotten to provide regulations for the control of his convicts. I discovered them by mere accident, for they were not published. As already related, the son of the late Premier had passed through the group distributing photographs of his estimable father. The day he left Nukualofa, Ula, the head jailer, came to Tukuaho with a document in Tongan in the young man's handwriting, which may be translated as follows: "I, Ula, do declare before God that I have never flogged a woman by the orders of Mr Baker." There was a date and a place for the signature and the seal, neither of which had been affixed. 'He sent twice to me to ask me to sign this," said Ula, but I would not. Then he came himself, and asked me to sign by the love that I bore his father, but still I would not, so he called me by bad names and went away in the steamer."

[ocr errors]

“And did you flog women by order of Mr Baker?" I asked.

Ula fumbled in his waistband, and produced a tiny green-paper book, printed in Tongan, and pointed to the words, "It shall be lawful to flog any prisoner guilty of unruly conduct." Then turning over the pages he showed me the signature at the foot, "MISA BEIKA." They were the Prison Regulations, and I at once annexed them for future study. "There is nothing there forbidding me to beat women," continued Ula, "so I beat them when they were unruly, and Mr Baker knew that I did and said. nothing. It is not forbidden in our customs." It appeared that the story of the women being flogged had been carried to Auckland by one of the ships-of-war, and the fallen Premier wanted to clear his character by an affidavit from a Tongan jailer.

As the right to punish was vested in the jailer, it was of course not used against those who had taken the precaution of winning his favour. There was in fact no discipline, and the prisoners were fast becoming a source of public danger.

Yet smooth as was the life of a Tongan malefactor, no Tongan likes work; and since it was so easy to escape, it became fashionable to steal boats and set sail for Samoa or Fiji. There was a spice of adventure and danger about such an escape that exactly suits a Tongan. They suffered sometimes. Jope, who reached Lakemba in an open boat in 1886, would have died of hunger in another twelve hours. Two men who sailed from Niuafoou were never again heard of. On the other hand, several such attempts. were successful. The men who stole the Government

THE GENTLEMEN OF THE JAIL.

109

despatch-boat Beatrice have settled at Wallis Island, and those who escaped in the boat of the German firm from Vavau reached Samoa in safety. But for the extradition. clause of the English treaty they would all have safely made Fiji with a fair wind, but they knew that from a British colony they would be sent back to be dealt with in a Tongan court. The German firm was now pressing a demand for compensation for the value of their stolen boat; and an English storekeeper, from whom the prisoners had stolen their clothes, was arguing with reason that a Government that would not keep its prisoners under lock and key should be held responsible for the consequences of their acts. It was high time to introduce prison reform, if I could find a prison.

The houses built for the labourers introduced by Baker to work the Government plantations were still standing, and could be made prisoner-proof pending the erection of a proper jail, for which I had plans prepared. One of the long buildings would do for the men and the other for the women, while the warder could live in the small house between the two. I hunted up a lot of iron bars, and set the native carpenters to sink them into the windowframes. Then I drafted Prison Regulations of the usual kind, and passed them through the Cabinet under the authority of one of the existing laws. As soon as they had been printed in the native press, a day was appointed when, to their intense indignation, the gentlemen of the jail were made to bow their heads to the scissors, and, worse indignity still, were locked up at night. Even the Cabinet was aghast at the boldness of this step. The prisoners vowed vengeance. Tonga under such circum

« ForrigeFortsett »