GOVERNING SAMOA.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 243, 14 October 1929, Page 19

GOVERNING SAMOA.

CHANGE IN POLICY ADVISED

I,OSS OF PRSSTIGE'

MISSIONARY'S OPINIONS,

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

DUXEDIN, this day.

"New Zealand must govern Samoa, tut we are certainly not satisfied with the present state of affairs there. If Samoa cannot be governed without the use of force, after ten years' experience, then that amounts to a confession of failure," stated the Rev. J. F. Goldie, ■who has been in charge of the Methodist mission in the Solomon Islands for 27 years, and has had over 30 years' experience with native races in the Pacific. "The government of all the Pacific islands constitutes a very difficult task," Jie said. "Our own Dominion Government has had difficulty in straightening out affairs in Samoa, chiefly through lack of knowledge of native life and character. After my experience I am convinced that the solution of the problem lies in a course that the Administration seems reluctant to adopt, that js, calling into its councils not only Europeans of long experience with natives, but the more intelligent native chiefs themselves, and finding out what the natives really desire. The Government will claim that it has adopted this course, but in my opinion it has only called in those whose views were known to coincide with those of the Administration. "I had a long interview with Tamasese in Mount Eden gaol," said Mr. Goldie, "and while I found him resentful of his unjust deportation from Samoa and imprisonment in New Zealand, his interpretation of the phase 'Samoa for the Ramoans' meant, as far as I could ascertain, nothing that we could not grant without any loss of prestige. If the views of the Samoans were ascertained and were found to be absolutely impossible, then sincere friends of the Government would be satisfied that the present course of repression and force was justifiable. For the credit of New Zealand, which has handled the native affairs of this Dominion in such a -tfay as to win the admiration of the whole • world, it should not be difficult to find a way out of the present impossible position."