THE COOK ISLANDS.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 250, 21 October 1919, Page 10

THE COOK ISLANDS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —In a recent issue of your paper, "Manahiri" gives us to understand that the whites in the Cook Islands are a confirmed lot of grumblers, for the reason that each succeeding Resident Commissioner gives rice to the same eompluints and grievances amongst the inhabitants of the island. Well, sir, in reply to this, I would say that there can be no peace in the Cook Islands so long ne a commissioner is given unlimited power which no man would really be fitted to exercise. The white people will have to be recognised as citizens of the Empire, and given a proper share in the local government of the country they live in, instead of being humiliated and taxed by a native council upon which we Europeans are • not represented. When this matter is attended to by the Xew Zealand Government we may expect to enter upon an era of peaceful development; in the meantime the Archangel Gabriel might be sent here as administrator, but he has a small chance of making a puwess of the job, for the Cook Island Act places him in an impossible position. How does "Manaliiri"' suppose that vre are to remedy this situation except by continual complaint and agitation, seeing that we have no one to speak for us in the New Zealand Parliament or elsewhere, and even the Minister for the Cook Islands is notoriously antagonistic towards us?—l am., etc., THOMAS WATSON.