9
With the favourable resolution of Tonga’s internal political struggles by the end of the 1852 civil war, King George focused his attention on establishing and maintaining Tonga’s independence by trying to secure its recognition by the major powers. This objective now became his main ambition, for his own political position by this time appeared quite secure. One of the things that concerned him most during the next decade was to improve the country’s legal system. Both he and the missionaries were well aware of the inadequacy of the 1850 Code for good government. The Reverend Robert Young, who was sent by the Wesleyan Missionary Committee on deputation to the South Seas in 1852-3, stated (Young 1854:442) that King George was aware of the defects of the Code, and he himself had reason to believe that before long the King and his chiefs would revise it. The missionaries entertained the same hope, but it was not in fact fulfilled until some twelve years later.
A new and more comprehensive Code, revising and enlarging previous laws, was drawn up and promulgated by the King and his chiefs in 1862. Basil Thomson (1894:223) called it a constitution, because the Code included provisions which were ‘constitutional’ in nature, in that they furnished a framework of government. Clauses I, III and V, for instance, were concerned with the powers and duties of the King and his assembly, the judges and governors, respectively (see Appendix C).
The promulgation of the Code produced great excitement among some of the friends and supporters of the mission who regarded it as a remarkable achievement on the part of the missionaries. With obviously deep feelings, the Reverend W.M. Punshon, a prominent member of the Missionary Committee in London, declared:
However, these sentiments were not shared by the enemies of the mission, who viewed this Code of Laws with utter contempt. They regarded it as a political blunder instigated by men who were unqualified for such a highly specialised venture. Thomson (1894:222-3) afterwards wrote:
Both Punshon and Thomson, though diametrically opposed in their attitudes towards the mission, shared the view that the missionaries were largely responsible for this Code. However, it is necessary to question the correctness of their assertions. What part did the missionaries in fact play in this historic event? Did they participate in the drawing up of this Code upon the official request of the King and his chiefs, as they had done in the case of the 1850 Code of Laws?
The second half of the 1850s and the first half of the sixties witnessed a steadily widening rift in the ‘marriage of convenience’ between the state and church in Tonga. This rift prevented the missionaries as a body from giving King George and his chiefs the kind of assistance they had previously offered, in their role as political advisers to the King. Many causes contributed to the rift.
Many chiefs and their peoples had accepted Christianity, not on the grounds of personal conviction but for reasons of loyalty to, or fear of, powerful King George and his Christian followers. They met in classes and performed religious obligations largely because the King wanted them to do as he and his supporters did. For a time, the emotional fervour of the religious revivals, which spread with such intensity in the second half of the 1830s and also in the 1840s, affected even these nominal Christians, so that scarcely anyone remained untouched by revivalism in one way or another. But the effects were not lasting, and gradually the excitement and enthusiasm wore off, particularly amongst the chiefs. Some began to realise that they had a heavy price to pay for their conversion, for they were required to surrender many of the privileges which for centuries had been regarded as the exclusive birthright of their socio-political class. They began to wonder if they had made a sound choice, and some began to react against the missionaries.
Some of the novelty attached to the work of the missionaries had worn off. Literacy, early the prerogative of the missionaries, had become common to most Tongans by the latter half of the 1850s, when many could read and write and teach others to do the same. Nor were the operations of the printing press any longer regarded with awe and wonder, and its exciting effect upon the minds of the people was fast disappearing.
The monopoly of the Wesleyan missionaries in the use of medicine, which for two decades had won them admiration, affection and respect, was now seriously challenged by the Roman Catholic mission. Owing to the great demand for medicine and its short supply, since the Committee provided an insufficient amount, the Wesleyan missionaries were forced to buy extra supplies of medicine and also to charge a small fee for its distribution. The Roman Catholic priests had meanwhile decided to distribute their medicine free among their members.
John Thomas (Journal, 6 May 1856) wrote:
The missionaries’ monopoly of trade, because of their possession of ample supplies of articles for barter, was similarly affected. The challenge this time came not only from the Roman Catholic priests but also from traders who had by now established themselves in the various islands of Tonga.
The absence of respectable settlers in the islands before the fifties had made it inevitable that King George and his chiefs relied almost completely on the missionaries for advice concerning the previous two Codes of Laws and also Tonga’s foreign relations. However, this situation was altered by the presence of other European settlers in Tonga, from the mid-fifties onwards, who seriously challenged the missionaries’ role as unofficial political advisers.
Another factor threatening to undermine both the prestige and popularity of the missionaries was the pride of the chiefs. Conscious of the fact that the chiefs had been their protégés in religious and educational matters, the missionaries tended at times to adopt a patronising attitude which the chiefs resented. One missionary wrote:
All these things contributed in one way or another to the gradual decline of the prestige of the missionaries in the eyes of the chiefs and helped to widen the gulf between them. Even King George, himself the hero and protector of the Wesleyan cause, was no exception.
As early as 1850 there was obviously some strain in the relationship between the King and John Thomas, then chairman of the Wesleyan mission in Tonga. On the day he left Tonga for England for the first time after almost twenty-four years of continual service in Tonga, Thomas (Journal, 21 Feb. 1850) painfully recorded, ‘many natives now come to take leave ... but the King and I leave in not a good state of mind ... I regret he should have so far yielded to the enemy.’ Apparently one of the reasons for these strained relations was due to his suspicion that Thomas had used cunning in order to try to obtain Tonga for Great Britain ‘merely because [he] advised the King at a time when they feared they should have become the slaves of the French, to apply to the English Government for protection—to offer themselves to be the friends—or subjects of the English (for England has no slaves)’ (Thomas, Journal, 19 Nov. 1849). When Thomas finally left Tonga in 1859 he wrote with obviously heavy heart:
While the decrease in missionary influence was obvious in the framing of the 1862 Code, non-missionary influence was quite marked. This was partly brought about by a revival of interest in some of the old Tongan customs and forms of entertainment, which may account for the disappearance of the provisions prohibiting dancing and all heathen customs, and partly by the growing contact of the Tongan leaders, especially King George, with non-missionary Europeans.
The chiefs in Tonga valued the skills and services of Europeans. It had been, at one time, a matter of prestige among the chiefs to have a European resident. King George himself had employed a few Europeans in the palace as early as the 1840s, including an ex-convict from Australia, to the utter disgust of the missionaries. The King established close associations with the new European settlers in Tonga, met and received advice from friendly sea captains and British Consuls.
The missionaries told Lawry that:
Thomas (Journal, 27 Oct. 1849) reported:
An intimate friendship developed between himself and Sir George Grey, Governor of New Zealand, who exhibited much interest in the affairs of Tonga. In one of his letters to the King, Sir George wrote:
These wider ranging contacts must have had some influence on the King’s political thinking. They certainly coloured his estimation of missionaries of the ‘Thomas school’ with their paternalistic attitudes, and he was further driven to seek help and advice from non-missionary sources.
By far the most penetrating non-missionary influence on the Code came as a result of the King’s visit to Sydney, and his subsequent political correspondence with Charles St Julian, law reporter of the Sydney Morning Herald, and later Hawaiian Consul in Sydney.
King George embarked on the mission vessel John Wesley for a trip to Sydney in 1853. The idea was originally suggested by Rabone. The missionaries believed that it was a good idea for King George to visit New South Wales to see how the people of civilised countries lived and managed their affairs. The King eagerly accepted the idea and was ready to leave Tonga on a man-of-war, ‘but the Missionaries, fearing that influences unfriendly to his spirituality might possibly act upon him in such a vessel’ (Young 1854:213) persuaded him to wait for their own vessel, the John Wesley.
The extent of the impact of this new experience on the King’s mind remains a matter for conjecture, but one wonders whether he may not have received a similar impression to the one expressed by his son, Tēvita ’Unga, when he visited Sydney in 1872. When ’Unga returned to Tonga, he told the people that he had discovered on his trip that ‘rulers’ in Sydney were not all ministers of religion but businessmen (W.T. Rabone to his father, 5 July 1872, WMMSA 1852-79). There was one experience, however, which left a marked impression on King George, and which was later reflected in the 1862 Code of Laws. In Sydney he encountered poverty. It has been said that he saw many poorly dressed people, obviously ill-fed, sleeping in the parks. He asked about these people, and was told they were homeless people who had no place to go. This state of affairs was greatly surprising to King George, who could not understand how there could be homeless and poverty-stricken people in a land as large and obviously rich as Australia. His heart was so full of pity for the plight of these people that he determined that such an appalling situation should never be allowed to arise in Tonga (informant, Her Majesty the late Queen Sālote). The King was also very impressed with the leasehold system of land tenure which he saw in Sydney, and he made up his mind that the land in Tonga should be distributed among his own people along similar lines.
This appears to have been the origin of King George’s idea of legislating for the individual ownership of land—a revolutionary change in the system of land tenure in Tonga. The prohibition of the sale of land which appeared in Clause II of the 1862 Code was only a legislation of customary land tenure, but the notion of individual ownership of land by leasehold was something quite new.
One can observe the influence of his overseas experience in the provision of the Code which compels the chiefs to allot portions of land to the people and as long as they pay their tribute and rent to the chief they cannot be dispossessed (see Appendix C, Clause XXXIV:6 and 7).
Although documentary evidence is lacking, it seems highly probable that King George met Charles St Julian in Sydney towards the end of 1853 or just before his return to Tonga in early 1854. At any rate, St Julian wrote several letters to King George in 1854 and 1855.
The missionary, Thomas West, reported that he had received an official document from St Julian towards the end of 1854, which the latter had asked him to translate for King George. According to West this document contained three main suggestions: that Hawaii and Tonga would enter into political and commercial relationships; that the King would take steps to secure a formal recognition of his independence by foreign powers; and that he should establish a constitutional government. This document, together with a copy of the constitution adopted by Hawaii at this time, was accordingly translated and presented to the King.
He appears to have given the submission careful consideration, but he thought that ‘the introduction of such a movement would be inopportune’ (West 1865:393). In a letter addressed to St Julian on 24 November 1854, thanking him for his letter and for his desire to help him and his people to elevate his kingdom, King George stated:
St Julian followed this up with another three letters in 1855. In the first, dated 25 April, he stated the objects of his correspondence:
His other letters outlined the system of government which he suggested might be adopted by King George (St Julian to Tupou, 15 Oct. 1855), and also advice on matters relating to foreign relations, military defence and public revenue.
To improve the economy of the country he suggested that Tonga could develop a cotton industry. He pointed out that the fertility and suitability of the soil for cotton growing would attract planters, who would find excuses for seizing the land, and the only way to prevent this would be to have a well organised and well administered government.
The King’s apparent lack of enthusiasm or slowness to adopt the reforms which St Julian believed were needed in Tonga led the latter to publish an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 9 January 1858, alleging that King George had imperialist ambitions towards Samoa and Fiji, which were likely to create dangerous friction between the great maritime powers who had subjects living on these islands. He alleged further that King George’s ‘government of his own islands is totally inefficient except for the wants of the merest savages, and, with the true feeling of a semi-barbaric chief, he obstinately resists all improvement’.
When this letter was challenged in a strongly worded reply from Eggleston, the General Secretary of the Methodist Overseas Mission, St Julian wrote, defending his stand and claiming that his statement concerning the inefficiency of King George’s government was fully justified:
In general his arguments were valid and sound. However, he failed to appreciate the fact that there were problems peculiar to each region which would inevitably influence not only the kind and degree of change to be made, but also the appropriate time for such action.
St Julian was a Roman Catholic and he was also, at this time, seeking a government appointment in the South Pacific islands. His attempt to offer advice to King George was resented by the missionaries, for they viewed it as an encroachment upon what they regarded as their sphere of influence. Their resentment was intensified by St Julian’s attack on the credibility of King George, the avowed champion of their cause. Not surprisingly, when St Julian sought an exequatur from the British government to act as British Consul in Tonga, a letter was addressed on their behalf to the Colonial Office, ‘offering reasons against the appointment of Charles St Julian Esq. to the Office of the Consul of the British Government in Tonga, or the Friendly Islands’ (Hoole to Lython, 27 July 1858, WMMSA 1852-79).
The missionaries saw the advantage to Tonga of adopting a constitutional government and of being recognised as equal by all the great nations of the world; yet despite their belief ‘that the Tonguese [had] better capabilities, and greater facilities for becoming an important people, than even the Hawaiians’ (West 1865:393), who, in fact, had achieved international recognition for their independence, they felt that such sweeping reforms and alterations in the political condition as those proposed by St Julian ought to be brought about gradually. King George appeared to have shared their opinion for a time, but events of the following years reveal that he was forced by circumstances to adopt many of the measures suggested by St Julian.
Evidently the Roman Catholic priests were dissatisfied with Captain Belland’s decision in 1852, which exonerated King George’s conduct during the civil war, and they determined to continue the fight. Three years later Father Calinon succeeded in having the case reopened, and in January 1855 he returned to Nuku’alofa with the French Governor of Tahiti. The Governor believed that King George had been treated too leniently by Captain Belland. The King was then ‘required to sign on 9 January a treaty of peace and friendship reminiscent of those dictated by French Naval Officers in Tahiti and Hawaii in earlier years’ (Morrell 1960:314). The treaty had already been prepared in advance for him to sign. It stated that there was to be perpetual peace and friendship between Tupou and Napoleon III; the Catholic church was declared free in all the islands of Tonga and its members were to have all the privileges accorded to Protestants; those who had been exiled or deprived of their property on account of religion were to be allowed to return to their homes and have their property restored; French subjects residing in Tonga and visiting ships and crews were to be protected in their persons and property by the King; French ships were to enjoy the most-favoured-nation privileges in regard to anchorage pilot dues and other charges; and King George’s subjects were to have a right to the advantages accorded to the French in Tonga in all French possessions (West 1865:388-90).
Wood has rightly pointed out that the treaty was important as the first official recognition, by a foreign nation, of King George’s sovereignty and Tonga’s independence. It showed that he was regarded ‘as fit to rule his country and to prevent trouble happening to Europeans resident in Tonga’ (Wood 1932:56). Although this was quite true, the treaty was evidently designed as a means of promoting the interests of the Roman Catholic church and consequently of French imperialism. It gave the Catholic priests renewed determination, after the humiliating setbacks they had suffered in both their failure to achieve the conversion of the masses to their faith and in their political manoeuvring which had led to the civil war of 1852. The fall of Pea removed the last obstacle to King George’s rule throughout the kingdom, and was at the same time a tremendous blow to the Catholic cause which had associated itself with the rebel elements. However, equipped with the rights now sanctioned by the treaty, they wasted no time in pursuing the restoration of their lost prestige and the fulfilment of their objectives. On a wide variety of fronts they launched their assaults with vigour, beginning with political agitation.
Soon after the departure of the Governor the priests began to visit various districts, including some such as Hihifo where they had not a single adherent, in order to establish a permanent residence. Later, in July 1858, Father Calinon and another priest arrived at Lifuka, Ha’apai, intent upon establishing a Catholic mission there. The Governor of Ha’apai, Siosaia Lausi’i, tried to temporise, saying that he had to obtain permission from the King, who was at Vava’u at that time, before allowing them to land. This refusal gave Father Calinon an excuse to appeal to the French frigate La Bayonnaise, which had arrived in Tonga. Its captain immediately sent for King George and Siosaia, the Governor. King George tried to explain that the Governor had acted in accordance with the laws of the land, and that he did not realise that he had broken the treaty in doing so. He appealed to the captain to have the matter judged by a third party and failing this he offered to pay compensation for any inconvenience that might have been caused to the priests by the Governor’s action. This offer was refused and the captain demanded that King George should ‘depose the Governor, Josiah; ... convey the French priests, their servants and their baggage to Ha’apai; and ... grant them a piece of land and build them two houses equal in every respect to those occupied by the Wesleyan Missionaries’ ( Wesleyan Missionary Notices, Jan. 1859:17).
The only concession, made at the suggestion of Father Chevron, was to give the Governor of Ha’apai three months in which to carry out these undertakings. ‘The King had no alternative,’ wrote Thomas, ‘and in [a] few days, his own vessel had to take the Priests on board with their things and remove them to Lifuka—where the Protestant chiefs and people are working almost night and day in order to get these houses built’ (Thomas to Eggleston, 19 Aug. 1858, WMMSA 1852-79).
Referring to this incident Whewell wrote (to Eggleston, 16 Feb. 1859, WMMSA 1852-79), ‘I fully understood “The Treaty” a copy of which I sent you, two years ago, to give them a legal right to go anywhere in the dominions of King George of Tonga. That was its plain verbal meaning to my mind, though that never was the King’s idea of it.’
In 1860, Father Calinon wanted to conduct a Catholic burial in the Wesleyan cemetery. Governor Siosaia was approached and, after consultation with the Wesleyan missionaries, he sent a message to the priest to say that he could bury his dead at any other burial place but the Wesleyan. Father Calinon regarded this as an insult, for ‘he sought a piece of ground only four feet by four to inter in for the time being, which was refused and this being the case, he considered himself persecuted by the natives, and that the treaty had been broken which granted equal privileges to Catholics and Protestants—therefore considered himself justified in bringing the matter to a man of war’ (Stephinson, Journal, 7 Aug. 1860). He then sent his complaints to the priests in Tongatapu, who were to present them to the commander of a man-of-war. As a result the captain of a French warship, which called at Tonga in March 1860, demanded that Siosaia be deposed, threatening that otherwise he would ‘carry off King George to New Caledonia’ (Morrell 1960:315). His demands were carried out, and Siosaia was deposed.
Eventually, however, the priests became aware of the fact that their involvement with the power of the French Navy did more harm than good to their cause. Father Chevron wrote (to Father Poupinel, 11 Nov. 1861):
The Roman Catholic priests appeared to show more understanding and sympathy towards the customs and traditions of the Tongans than did the Wesleyans. Their open encouragement of some traditional practices was a direct challenge to the intolerance of the Protestant mission and it flouted some of the laws formulated by King George under Wesleyan influence. The priests deplored the blanket prohibition of all heathen customs in the 1850 Code of Laws.
It remains true that the Roman Catholic priests showed greater tolerance towards Tongan traditional culture, but their motives for doing so were not clear. It is difficult to decide whether they were prompted by a genuine understanding and appreciation of Tongan traditions or were more tolerant on account of their Gallic Catholic background, which was relatively free of puritanical austerity, or whether they were primarily motivated by a desire to undermine the work of the Methodist missionaries. The last may well have been the case, since in other groups where Roman Catholics were predominant their priests did not show the same tolerance as was shown in Tonga. The Roman Catholic mission at the Gambier Islands was an example of this.
The Wesleyans, however, had only one interpretation and viewed the priests’ attitude on these matters as a deliberate attempt to entice away their followers. One missionary wrote in 1863:
A year later another missionary wrote that the French priests had been breaking the Sabbath by assembling the people to sing songs and play different games on the Catholic mission premises ‘as part of the religion, to keep them [the people] out of mischief ( W-M Mag., 1865:175).
The continuing opposition of the priests and their attempts to involve French men-of-war in their political agitation only strengthened anti-Catholic and anti-French sentiments, particularly among the chiefs, who were jealous of any foreign interference in their country. These experiences helped to deepen King George’s conviction that there was a tremendous need to establish a government which would be recognised and whose laws would be respected by the civilised nations of the world, if the independence of Tonga was to be assured.
It is clear that at the time of the preparation of the 1862 Code, relations between the missionaries of the ‘Thomas School’ and the King were so strained that they were all, collectively and individually, out of favour with the King-They were therefore not in any position to be asked by the King and the chiefs to offer advice on the drawing up of the Code.
When John Thomas left in 1859 the Reverend Thomas Adams became the chairman of the mission. Adams was a very able man and was on very good terms with King George. Unfortunately Adams’s wife died in 1860 and he had to return to England. The Reverend W.J. Davis, who had served in Tonga from 1848 to 1856, was sent back to Tonga from Australia and was to be the chairman of the mission from 1861 to 1866.
Within a year of the start of his chairmanship, Davis became involved in a head-on clash with the King and his chiefs over the funeral of King George’s son, Vuna, who died on 2 January 1862. The chiefs and relatives of the King had decided to revive the old custom of tukuofo (presentation of gifts at funerals), which was still prohibited by the Society, but had been made legal by the state the previous year. Davis, standing firm by the rules of the Society, decided to dismiss all the chiefs and people who were involved in this matter from membership of the Society. The King took it as a personal insult and decided to resign all his positions in the church, and the Queen did likewise (Stephinson, Journal, 5 Mar. 1862).
The members of the Methodist Overseas Mission Committee in Sydney were obviously disturbed by this dramatic development, for they knew only too well how much their work in Tonga depended on King George and his support. The chairman, however, defending his stand in the dispute, wrote to the Committee declaring, ‘We must be prepared to do battle with the enemy in high places’ (Davis to Eggleston, 18 Mar. 1862, WMMSA 1852-79). To which Eggleston, the secretary of the Committee, replied:
Among the younger missionaries, there was one who had arrived in Tonga in 1860 and who had a rather different outlook. He was not highly educated, but was gifted, vigorous, full of enthusiasm and very ambitious. He appeared to be more liberal than the senior missionaries. This young man was Shirley Waldemar Baker, who was destined to make a name for himself in the history of Tonga.1 Apparently King George felt that this young missionary was the very one they needed, for it was to him that the King turned for advice. Baker wrote in 1863:
There have been some doubts raised as to the part Baker claimed to have played in drawing up the Code. Because Baker had only been in Tonga for two years, some argued that his knowledge of the language was barely sufficient for such a difficult job. It has also been alleged that Baker did not have the necessary training for this kind of specialised task. ‘It may be supposed’, argued Consul Layard, ‘that this gentleman, from his antecedents, is not especially qualified for making the part of a legislator, and yet he manufactures new Constitutions and Laws, which are accepted.’ Baker answered:
When one examines the 1850 and 1862 Codes of Laws closely one finds that about 75 per cent of the main clauses of the 1862 Code were taken out of the 1850 Code with changes of wording and alterations in the arrangement of clauses. In the 1850 Code, for example, the law concerning land is found in Clause XXIX which reads:
Whereas in the 1862 Code it is found in the second clause and reads:
The fact that a considerable proportion of the 1862 Code of Laws was a reproduction of the earlier 1850 Code shows that even if Baker’s knowledge of the Tongan language was imperfect at the time and the story of his law studies a fabrication, he could still have managed to play the part he claimed to have played in drawing up the Code. Baker had nothing essentially new to contribute to the Code, for most of the provisions which appeared to be new were merely the results of the logical development in King George’s own political thinking. Even the laws concerning the emancipation of the people, the credit for which Baker had claimed for himself, seem to stem from King George, who, as early as 1839, had legislated against the old custom of hunuki, that is, marking or tabooing for the chiefs things belonging to the commoners, particularly food crops. A section of the 1850 Code pertained to the taking of anything forcibly (1850 Code, XIII).
This provision certainly went much further than the first one in 1839, although other provisions in the Code still allowed the chiefs to order their people to work for them.
In order to make the necessary reforms, King George called a meeting of his chiefs in 1859, at Nuku’alofa, which was followed by one in 1860 in Ha’apai and another in Vava’u in 1861. The King found it very difficult to obtain the chief’s agreement to the reforms which he himself wanted to make in the laws. The chiefs were unwilling to part with their remaining privileges. In the famous meeting at Pouono, the ceremonial ground at Neiafu, Vava’u, in 1861, many chiefs opposed the Emancipation Edict, complaining that the King had already deprived them of their power and consequently of much of their prestige, and now he was going to deprive them of the only remaining privilege upon which they were dependent for their living—the fatongia (enforced labour). ‘What would happen to us?’ asked Tungī, one of the leading chiefs, ‘we cannot fish, we cannot till the land, we cannot do anything for our living. Why don’t you just take the ngia and leave us the fato?’ (informant, Siola’ā Soakai).2
The King, however, saw the answer to the chiefs’ complaint in the rent which was to be paid to them by the land-holders for their tax allotments.
The 1862 Code with its forthright declaration of emancipation for all the people and their chiefs marked a culmination of the earlier developments when it enacted that:
It should now be apparent that Baker’s part in this Code was limited to discussing it with the King and to committing these laws to writing at the request of the King himself. These were important functions, of course, for the King and his chiefs were neither capable of deciding whether the laws which they wished to enact were in accord with the legal requirements of civilised countries (a thing which the King especially wanted to achieve) nor of setting the Code down in written form.
The rift between the King and the missionaries did not affect his acceptance of the Christian principles which they had taught him. He appeared to be absolutely convinced that the way of life that Christian civilisation had to offer was the best way of life for his people. Even when he decided to give up his positions in the Society as local preacher and class leader, he never ceased to be grateful for the work done by the Wesleyan missionaries for Tonga. In a speech which he delivered on a school examination day at Nuku’alofa in 1863, King George said:
He went on to say that thanks should be expressed by deeds as well as words and promised to replace the old chapel with one as good as he and his people could possibly build free of charge to the Society. He then donated 2,000 dollars towards the cost of the proposed new chapel. King George always supported the actual work of the mission, what he resented was the paternalism of the missionaries. Together with this was his suspicion that the missionaries were plotting against the much treasured independence of Tonga by trying to get the island kingdom for Great Britain.
The King still valued the missionaries’ opinions on certain matters. One of the things which worried them, for instance, was the method used for payment of the judges. It consisted of the distribution of convicted persons among them, as labourers. The missionaries believed that this kind of payment by convict labour would easily corrupt the seat of justice. They feared that the judges’ decisions could easily be influenced by the knowledge that they would be paid for their work by having the prisoners who were about to be sentenced to work for them. In response to this a section of the 1862 Code requires that judges and the public officials should be paid salaries and that criminals should work for the state (Clause XXXVI:2 and 3).
The missionaries were not happy with leaving the punishment of offenders to the discretion of the judges. A spokesman for the missionaries discussed this with the King in 1850 after the promulgation of the Code of Laws of that year, but the King’s reply was that he and his chiefs wanted to do things step by step (Lawry 1851:81). However, the experiences of the intervening years appear to have convinced King George that the view of the missionaries on this question was correct. In the 1862 Code there are specific penalties mentioned for infringements of the law and it is no longer left to the discretion of the judges.
Another matter which had caused some concern to the missionaries was the absolute power of the King, which they believed was far too great. While they were satisfied that King George exercised this power with great prudence and equity, they feared that such power would probably be quite unsafe in the hands of his successors. A response to this may be seen in the provision concerning the King which makes him subject to the laws in the same way as the people (Clause 1:3).
From the start, the missionaries had recognised the importance of education in lifting the general standards of the people. One missionary wrote: ‘a great work remains to be done. There are multitudes of young persons growing up, who, if not blessed with a proper training,—physical, intellectual, moral, and religious—will be the pests of society, and worse than heathen, if possible’ ( Wesleyan Missionary Notices, Jan. 1859:10).
At first the Tongans showed great interest and enthusiasm for education but by the fifties many had become apathetic and the majority had ceased to attend school. One missionary wrote in 1857:
The missionaries were very concerned about this situation. They discussed the matter with the King and his governors and the results can be seen in the provisions of the Code which make education compulsory (Clause XXXII).
Naturally, they were pleased about this, for it must be remembered that the only schools which existed at this time were mission schools. One missionary wrote of this law:
King George seems to have been convinced of the wisdom of establishing a public revenue, as St Julian had emphasised in his letters. Customs duties were levied on wines and spirits, arms and ammunition. A licence of 100 dollars per annum was required for the sale of spirits, and every male over 16 was to pay a poll tax. Finally the new Code gave powers to the government to resume uncultivated lands which were not used by the people as a further incentive for the productive utilisation of land, thereby indirectly promoting the growth of the economy (Clause XL).
The missionaries gave the promulgation of the 1862 Code a mixed reception. Baker praised the event very highly, while another missionary, Whewell, wrote critically:
There were other missionaries who feared that the emancipation of the people might encourage the commoners to revive the old heathen customs and ways which were unacceptable to Christianity. In the mission report of 1866 it was stated that:
However, they were more optimisitc about the long-term effects of the change stating that ‘we doubt not it will prove a blessing in the end’ ( RAWMMS, 1866:22).
Three decades later, Basil Thomson (1894:222-3), blaming the missionaries for the Emancipation Edict, wrote:
Thomson was quite wrong here. The emancipation laws did not have the mere object of freeing slaves. Tonga’s emancipation was the freeing of the people from the bondage of an institutional system akin to feudalism. Wood rightly points out that ‘though the serfdom that had existed in Tonga was not comparable to a condition of slavery under masters of another race, as in America, yet the ancient absolute power of Tongan chiefs over the lives and property of their people was out of keeping with the position of the country even in 1862’ (Wood 1932:56-7).
The favourable reactions to the Code, from both Australia and England, were heartening to King George, who wished to obtain the recognition of the world at large for his government. The Tongans, apart from the chiefs who resented the infringement of their privileges, welcomed the Code with enthusiasm. For many of the commoners, in particular, the new codes brought opportunities for greater prosperity, through the distribution of tax allotments and the abolition of the chiefs’ rights over their people’s property, though later some felt the burden of taxation just as heavily if not heavier than the traditional fatongia.
The beneficial effects were reported by the British Vice-Consul, A.P. Maudslay, in 1879 when he wrote to the Marquis of Salisbury:
The Code of Laws of 1862 was mainly due to King George’s own progressive thinking and matured political judgment. Certainly, it was not forced upon him by the missionaries, nor did it come as a result of their importunities, as Basil Thomson would have us believe. The relationship between King George and the senior missionaries had become so awkward at this time that he did not ask the missionaries, as a body, for their advice in preparing this Code. However, he had maintained friendly relations with some of the younger missionaries, such as Thomas West, Thomas Adams, Richard Amos, and especially Shirley Baker, and he had consulted with them. In addition, he had turned to non-missionaries, such as St Julian, for advice. He had also discussed the reforms which he wanted to make with his chiefs in their meetings before the Code was finally drawn up and promulgated.
Nonetheless, the missionary influence in the Code was quite marked, for several reasons. Firstly, there was the King’s continuing religious conviction. Secondly, there was the contact with the younger missionaries, mentioned above, particularly with Baker who was responsible for drawing up the Code in written form. Finally, the 1862 Code drew heavily upon the earlier 1850 Code which the missionaries had helped to formulate.