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JH Webb
Resident Agent, Aitutaki

The options for the future government of the Cook Islands were explained by Government officials including JH Webb, former Resident Agent and Magistrate, who was born in French Polynesia. Among his school friends was Albert Royle Henry (1907–1981) who would later found and lead the Cook Islands Party and become the country’s first Premier until replaced by Sir Tom Davis.

In this interview with Ian Johnstone, recorded in 1994, Albert Henry’s presence and influence are recalled by Mr Webb. He also describes how Cook Islanders chose their governing system.

Listen to the interview

Transcript of the interview

Webb: It took us quite a while to realise what the people who talked about independence and self-government meant. NZ was magnificent; they dealt with us in a very lenient way, said we could have either complete independence or self-government in association with NZ, who would look after foreign affairs, or complete integration with NZ – that option was soft-pedalled. In fact, everybody laughed about that one, including the chap who came to talk about it.

Ian: So the idea of self-government was brought from outside. Who brought it?

A lot of our people were in NZ then and they were probably more aware about these matters. The NZ government didn’t stop them – if anything it encouraged them.

How had that NZ colonial administration been – was it harsh?

People got a bit impatient with the colonial system. They didn’t like having to go to see someone to be able to do this or that. Then they were told that under self-government all the control would be with Cook Islanders and they’d get lots and lots of money from the citrus planting scheme. All the money would go to them.

People from NZ started to talk about how our taxes should be used to pay our own public servants. Some came back from NZ and told workers on the Rarotonga wharf "In NZ we get 5 pounds a day, here you’re only paid 5 pounds a week. You’re being exploited". Until then people here had been quite satisfied. The Unions were the ones who caused considerable unrest.

Albert Henry was a union leader who came back – to his island of Aitutaki. When he arrived on the island for which you, as Resident Agent, were responsible, did you think "here comes trouble"?

I liked Albert. I’d been to school with him. He was a good man, very highly intelligent. His one objective was to free the people from what he thought was exploitation. It wasn’t that – it was just the comparison between living standards. Here, you could buy a week’s supplies with a pound and still have some left over; not in NZ.

Did you have a view of the Cook Islands Party, which Albert Henry led? Presumably you wouldn't have been a member.

I couldn't do that, they'd have been most mistrustful. But they knew I was sympathetic towards it. The CIP was looked on with suspicion by the local government, but not by the NZ government, which saw the growth of political parties as progress towards independence.

The Rarotonga government was staffed by expatriate New Zealanders who weren't trained – they just applied for the job and couldn’t speak a word of Māori when they arrived. All they thought of was working five days then claiming overtime. They didn’t care that local staff didn’t get overtime. They didn’t want anyone rocking the boat.

What did Albert Henry do when he came back? What did you talk about with him?

Albert was a very charming man with the gift - as we say in Māori – of a sweet tongue. Eloquent and forceful, he could have you in fits of laughter, he could control a crowd; he’d pick up a guitar and start to sing and everybody would join in; everybody loved him. He was a fresh wind blowing though the Cook Islands.

His ideas were excellent. All he and his party wanted to do was take over the land which belonged to them. Why shouldn’t we be able to control our own land? Why should expatriates be telling us what to do – where to put the road and so on? Why can’t one of our own people tell us, then we can argue with them?

I’ve heard that Albert Henry was badly dealt to and patronised by the Wellington politicians. Did he come back angry?

He didn't. He said to me "The people there don’t understand what self-government means. I have to tell them what I am going to do". He had some very rough passages there with politicians, but he was unruffled abut these matters.

Did you have to be cautious about meeting him? Talking with him in public?

Never occurred to me. I spoke whenever we met. We often sat on the verandah and had a few drinks. I was just talking to a friend about school days and such – you know each other, you discuss these things - nothing to do with politics, you're just talking to a friend.

You've mentioned the NZ Government was very generous about the choices – independence, self-government and so on. Why were they so slow in letting go, acknowledging the validity of what Henry and the CIP wanted to do?

I thought it was just the lack of expertise, lack of knowledge about what to do. It was a first time for the NZ government, being called a colonial power. Where do you start cutting the ribbon? They didn't have the expertise, like the British did.

Did you ever fear there might be violence?

It never occurred to me there could be that reaction while we were talking about self-government. We had people from the UN come to Aitutaki… one of them was named Pradas. When he came, I'm sure he was quite afraid. I used to go out on my own, driving in my jeep and he asked if I had any police with me. I said “Good heavens, whatever for?” He gave me a UN flag and told me to put it on my jeep. So I said "Thank you very much". I’ve still got it. I never put it on my jeep – I almost sat on the darned thing, to be honest. But he was really worried. And the transition was just like that. The people chose a new form of government. It was so simple. No waving guns. People clapped and what not. That was it. I was amazed.

One of the most peaceable transfers…

Yes. When he found out nothing was going to happen, he said I'll go with you and count all the papers. I told him I’d already done that and I wanted to send them to Rarotonga. But he went round and counted every darned vote himself. We were the first ones to finish and by about 3 am I sent off the final results and he had figures identical to what I had.

Had you heard here about difficult shifts to independence, in Africa for example. Did people know about Mau Mau?

Yes. They were amazed. They said - what are these people doing? Why are they killing each other to be free? That's the last thing you do. What's the use of being a free dead body!

You make it sound a remarkably gentle and almost inevitable process.

For me it was. The people had made up their minds and that was it. No question of killing people to get it because they knew they were going to get it because they had the opportunity to do so. All I had to do was ensure people had the knowledge of what they were doing. I had to go round and tell them… to Manihiki, Penrhyn, Mangaia and various islands.

What did you do when you got there?

I went in a Sunderland flying boat and explained what was required, what was intended, to the whole island…

Did you call a village meeting, or what? How did it work?

The whole island, yes. All I told them was what was intended. There was another man from NZ. He did exactly the same thing. It wasn't for us to tell them what might happen. Nothing to do with us at all. All we said was “This is what is being offered”.

All the people of the island would be there, prepared. We'd all sit down. We sat at a table. I heard them talking about what we’d come for. They were waiting for us to describe all this. They knew what it was but they wanted us to say it… that's the local way of doing things.

Why had you been chosen to do this? There must have been some strong element of trust there.

I like to think so. But we just went round… and for instance in Penrhyn, the people said “Well, who are we going to vote for?” I told them, "If that's the one you want, that's the one you vote for… if that person, that's the one you vote for. That is the democratic way of doing things”. We don't tell you who to vote for. All you do is select the right person that you want to be in power, then you vote for whichever one it is.

So you were having to explain not only the options for governing the Cook Islands but also the process of democracy.

Yes, that was the most important part. New Zealand overlooked that part. They explained the various options, but they forgot about the fact that people here didn't know exactly what to do.

You must have sensed what the feeling was. Were many people in favour of complete independence?

Complete independence was soft pedalled, never spoken of. It was sort of… well, of course, that's another option, but it isn't what you…

Never spoken of by whom? By you?

By the authorities. I think what they were worried about was that UN would say we are forcing the people to integrate. So they leaned over backwards to have that option… of course, you can be completely independent, but it will be far better…

So there was a stress and a persuasion from the official angle towards self-government in association with NZ?

It was between the two... either complete independence, or association. We explained both sides. What would happen.

Do you think the people feared that being independent they would lose their right of free entry to NZ?

That was the main thing. To be completely independent, they were no longer NZ citizens and weren't allowed to enter NZ… which they can do now.

What about the new constitution. Was there much concern about the role of traditional leaders?

The arikis didn’t come into it. It was not an option that was put forward to them.

What was your own feeling? Did you see problems ahead? Did you think it would work alright? Did you want another 5 years of colonial government?

No, I was all for independence in association with NZ. I couldn't see anything wrong with it. I thought we were very very lucky. I thought "Good Heavens, this is going to be a mark in history. Other countries will probably follow this. Good old NZ – a little country like that coming up with something which I’m sure the rest of the world will follow”. I think they have, too.

Earlier you took us to the point where you had counted the Aitutaki votes and your UN colleague had done the same. When the result was published in Rarotonga, how did you hear about it?

By radio.

What did you do then? Go out and make a formal announcement?

Everybody knew about it. When the votes were counted I announced the numbers.

Can you remember your thoughts as you farewelled expatriate NZers who'd been here under the conditions you were speaking about earlier? Were you glad – or sorry - to see them go?

Well, we'd seen so many of them coming and going, it was all part of the picture. They departed and that was that. We gave them a hat and a mat and away they went.

The Cook Islands Party won General Elections in 1965, 1968, 1972, 1974, and 1978. Albert Henry, knighted in 1974, was Premier throughout.

Dr Tom Davis
Premier  

The 1978 result was challenged by the Democratic Party, led by Dr Tom Davis, claiming supporters had been given free flights to come and vote for CIP. The challenge was upheld. Dr Davis was appointed interim Premier and held on to that position after his Democratic Party won the General Election.

Born in Rarotonga, Dr (later Sir) Tom Davis spent many school and university years in New Zealand and was the first Cook Islander to qualify as a Medical Doctor at Otago University in 1945. He earned international distinction as a research physiologist at Harvard and with the US Space Programme before returning to the Cook Islands, entering Parliament and then becoming Prime Minister from 1978 to 1987, with a brief break in 1983. Interviewed by Ian Johnstone in 1994, he said that after graduating he had been keen to work in his homeland, which was then administered by New Zealand.

Listen to the interview

Transcript of the interview

Davis: I'd applied to the New Zealand Government for a job here and they kept turning me down, but on the fourth or fifth time, they couldn’t find anybody else, I guess…

Ian: Why wouldn’t they want you back? They must have been relatively short of doctors.

The government didn’t think it was a good idea to have an educated Cook Islander come back in an important role… I’m sorry but that was the opinion of the time.

Was this your first conflict with the colonial attitude and administration?

Earlier, they told my family I should go to the Fiji School of Medicine, to, you know, keep me on the right track. The family thought it was the best thing to do what they'd been advised. I just rebelled and said I would do a full medical course, or nothing at all. That created problems of finance so I had to work my way through, which wasn’t easy, lot of sleep lost and so on.

Then I applied to come back here and as I said, four times they didn't want me, but the fifth time they conceded that they needed somebody. Then I was promoted to Chief Medical Officer, in 1948, I think. Meanwhile I'd gone to Australia for tropical medicine and in 1952 I was invited to go to Harvard. I might say they weren't happy about that.

What were your relationships like with the colonial administrators, most I guess, NZers. Did they look on you favourably – or were you a rebel?

They looked on me personally favourably. I was colour blind, what should happen to an island boy, so to speak, but there was a problem. They didn't want me, for instance, to take over the Chief Medical Officers' quarters. They wanted me to be housed somewhere else.

This was racism, was it? A colour bar?

Sheer racism. I had to suffer a fair bit of that. I was asked by the Resident Commissioner to enjoy myself and not worry so much about the sick people… I was spending too much money and all that. I just looked aghast. It was pretty bad. It created a state of mind which in effect said “We need to be free of this”.

Then Albert Henry came back in 1947 and I felt so strongly that we should have more say that I did work awfully hard at that, as had my mother before me. I particularly felt that our people had a lot more intelligence than they were being credited for and they were being kept down – and if they had a chance they would have done that to me, but I had a degree and a firm belief in myself and nobody was going to trample on that.

It had its problems and when I went to Harvard, the Resident Commissioner here – maybe this didn't come from NZ – but he said "If you accept that, you'll never get a job back here in the Cook Islands".

Really! He wasn't proud of the achievement, the honour…

No, no, no. I had made a terrible faux pas by accepting the invitation to Harvard. Then Albert came in and he came with the intent to disturb, which was the current thing of people on the left at that time. I saw it as being wasteful, but supported his idea that something should be done. But he came here to the waterfront, which was his background and had great disturbances there, and I talked him out of it, talked to him about heading for independence, or more say in local matters.

But I must say NZ supported my medical programme fully. When I took over the total budget was only about 12–15 thousand pounds and within 3 years I was up to 45 thousand and we had a good medical service.

Then came 1965, when I was in the US, but I heard all about it.

There you were, in Harvard, tied up will the space programme and all kinds of international things, were you still watching what was happening at home?

Absolutely. It wasn't always easy but I was kept informed.

Were you sending back advice? Looking at tactics?

No, I didn't know enough of what was going on, to be involved that way. That would have been out of order.

When you heard what had happened here in '65, the choice of self-government in free association with NZ rather than independence, what was your view?

I thought that was not a bad step. I thought we were going to make great mistakes, but better our mistakes than NZ's mistakes. We could live with ours, but why do we have to live with anybody else's? So I thought things were happening in the right direction.

There you were with this extremely high-profile important job – requests to you to come back home. You must have thought “I’ve got to go back there one day” or did you?

Despite my great fondness for America and its kindness to me – I was one of the top one or two hundred when I was working for government – I could never find any place that had my attention more than my own home. I’d lived through it as a doctor. I saw the disease caused by poverty, people not getting the right things, or enough, to eat, whatever, kids with sores on their legs. Even when I came back in 1970, the sores on the kids legs indicated to me as a doctor that nutrition was bad, and kids were apathetic. That all had to be changed. I couldn't change them until 1978.

About your being invited to come back – we're talking late 60s – was that an invitation?

Yes. From my cousin Makea, mainly, and from my old friends I'd worked with.

But not, I guess, from Albert Henry who would be glad you were away. You'd always been political foes?

Yes, he saw me as a rival and was happy when I was away. It wasn't only the NZ government that was happy I was away!

When you got back, patently you had a political role to play, but what sort of a job did you think Albert Henry and his CI Party had made of the experience of self-government?

I thought it was rather sad. The economy was going backwards steadily. From '65 it had gone back 10% a year, despite the rise in tourism from 1974... very steep rise. It was just beginning, so had to be steep. They were ordinary Cook Islanders from using their land, using their skills, using their own resources to get into tourism. Before I became Prime Minister I fought for that.

You were fighting an entrenched and very popular governing party. Can you remember the first time you met Albert after you got back?

Oh yes. Of course we’d always been good friends despite the undercurrent of rivalry. He spent a great deal of time with all the friends who were supporting him to talk me into supporting him.

He'd have liked you as a deputy, would he?

He’d have liked me out of the Opposition. He spent a great deal of time and effort on that. One thing I will say about him, I could talk about anything with him. He kept confidences well and I did the same in reverse. I could tell you some, but I won't even tell you those.

You've returned, you look at what's got to happen, you've got to set up the Demos, then you've got to get yourself a seat in Parliament. Was that easy? First time in politics?

Yes. Not easy, but I did win the seat and stayed long enough to be useful and be a problem to others. Useful to the majority, I hope. I’m proud that we took one of the lowest Pacific economies to the top, above Fiji and any of the other independent states. Nobody can take that from me. They might try!

How pleased were you with the constitution and the self-government arrangements put in place in 1965? Did it work as well as you wanted? What's wrong with it now?

It had a few flaws but I think of these things as frills rather than great things that you put your life on. You can operate if your programme is right, if your mental thinking is right. The flaws in the constitution didn't worry me one bit. It wasn't bad but it wasn't good.

We made big changes in 1980/81 which took us forward. The big thing we had to do was overcome NZ’s wish to be paternalistic. David Lange wanted us to go back, to give up all the economic gains the country had made, the equal dealings with France, England, America, Japan. He wanted to take all this away....

Take over your foreign affairs?

Yes, take back. Of course the constitution still says they have charge of foreign affairs but it's nothing like that. We have charge of our own economy, own foreign affairs, everything. And that's the way it's going to stay.

So you remain now, at age 77, just as determined that Cook Islanders will run the affairs of this country. So what do you think of NZ now?

Of course I’ve always loved NZ – it's just that when any country has a colony it treats it the way NZ treated us. If you go back in Polynesian history; the Tongans climbed all over the Samoans and the Fijians and Tahitians have done the same thing to their outer islands. The Romans did it and NZ didn’t act any differently from the Romans.

It’s in the nature of power.

In the nature of colonial power.

What's the long term? Are we going to see Cook Islanders making more of a living here? At the moment you've got two-thirds of your country living overseas, in NZ. Should that be reversed? Can it be?

No. I don't think it can be. Too many of them there now. They come back – it's a problem of space. We'd rather they stayed if they've been there all that long. We reversed the flow from here to NZ because we'd improved the economy so much that people stayed.

Then the reverse flow occurred round about 84, 85, 86, and that has been continuing. Our people feel it could be a problem. If we were into heavy industry, into big factories and things like that we might need them despite other problems. But as things stand now we're fairly comfortable and people feel the strain when people come back and demand their equal rights, with our people having fought so hard to get where they are.

So you feel the balance is about right now?

It's about right. It will increase. For the past ten years (1985-1995) the population has remained absolutely still, the birth rate is steady so there is no problem with the population. It is always the case that when the economy improves, the birth rate goes down. I proposed this way back in '54 at a Harvard seminar and everybody thought I was nuts, but that's how it works.

Looking back, one of the things that occurs in a colonial period is that the people under colonial rule lose their own sense of self-worth. They don't grow in pride and confidence. Was that the case here, and if so, has it been corrected now?

Yes, that was the case, and it’s not all corrected, there are still people who think the NZ ways may be better, but essentially, 90% of people really believe in themselves; who have self-esteem, who are doing things on their own. I wasn’t too happy about the Sheraton – they were going to bring in Filippinos and we'd be second class citizens in tourism. I'd worked so hard – "Go and build yourself a unit and run it" – that's how we turned the economy around, our own people getting in there and owning tourist associated industries. I hope we keep that. This government has tended to go towards a few elites instead of saying “C’mon fellows, lets build an industry; let's us get into it. If you feel you’ve got the resources to do it, with your own hands, with your own family, your own money – go ahead and do it. If you've got a banana plot that's not doing very well, go and get into the business”.

What about the sense of history, the cultural inheritance, the sense of being a Cook Islander. Is that as strong as you want it to be?

It’s as strong as it need be. It may not be as strong as I want it to be. I think Premier Geoffrey Henry has done pretty well – and I hope I did, too. My area is voyaging and I just put everything I can into knowledge of our maritime history, types of canoes, Polynesian navigation and what happened and I hope I know enough about that. But culture is not a government department; it’s what you adapt for yourself of what you are and what you have been. It’s a progression of things that you do culturally that suits you. For it to become a government department doesn't do any good. Specially a very expensive one.

Looking back, sir, you were away for twenty years, and part of that time was a formative period – this country moving into self-government and so on. Do you regret that you weren’t here then?

No, because knowing we were self-governing and knowing at some time I would be called, I spent a great deal of time trying to understand economic methods. I’m a great believer in free enterprise; I do not believe in restrictive legislation. I believe it’s hard enough to take that step which our people need to take which is to say “What can I do to make a living for myself and my wife and my family – how can I do better?” without restrictions blocking them. I'm very much against that and I believe NZ has suffered terribly from that, and it's still there.

Where I could not change it, I ignored it and bypassed it and rode over it so our people could get into the marketplace and know about it. We went from about 200 businesses, mostly European owned, to almost 1000, with very few new European ones, and our people got into it. They heard my call “Use your creativity, learn how to make a better living for yourself. Whatever you do for yourself that is beneficial is good for the country; the country is no good with poor people – it needs rich people”.

Thirty years now - how do you mark Cook Islanders for what they’ve made of their country over this time of self-government?

I give them high marks. They are responsive to what is good, what's reasonable and logical. They’ve done very well, so well that I don’t think leaders can take them backwards now – at least I hope they can’t.

 

JH Webb

Albert Henry

Sir Tom Davis

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