SAMOA TO-DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 211, 7 September 1933, Page 11

SAMOA TO-DAY.

REQUESTS OF MAU. SOME MERIT CONSIDERATION. THE FINAL MEETING. (By MARC T. GREENE.) * APIA (Western Samoa), Au«-. 23. The assertion that Mr. Nelson has told the Mau it may hold the meeting with the Administration without him is not to be taken seriously, for ho is perfectly eware that unless he so directs it will not be done. The permission, made in the form of a letter to the Samoans, may be considered simply a gesture; for nothing is more pertain than that Mr. Nelson could bring about the conference tomorrow if he really desired the natives to hold it without him. His influence is still the controlling one, although Apia is full of rumours that some of the younger chiefs, dissatisfied at the absence of results, are growing restive under his leadership and are anxious to have the "fono" without him. The condition productive of some apprehension here is that both eides are undoubtedly becoming impatient. Mr. Hart, at the last meeting, told the committee, that henceforth if laws were broken the responsibility would be upon the Samoans and not upon the New Zealand Administration, the police or the navy. Inasmuch as the small gunboat Veronica was in the bay at the time, the reference to the navy was immediately interpreted by the Mau as a threat of coercive action if the Samoans did not yield on the Nelson question, and a wireless message is said to have been sent to Auckland to that effect. Such an interpretation is a distortion of the Administrator's meaning, for these were his exact words, according to the stenographic record: "If the law is broken' offenders will be brought to justice, and if any of you present to-day or any of the Mau suffer for breaches of the law you must not blame the police, the navy Or the courts. They would be but doing their duty, and the only persons really to blame would be you or those of you who keep the Mau going or who break the law. I hope you will not treat this as a threat. I only mention it as an ordinary and open statement of fact, a statement of the conditions under which, we live, and I do not want anybody to be taken by surprise or to be disappointed." This closed tha meeting, and no arrangements were made for another, and eo the deadlock continues. Coercive Laws Resented. Little doubt exists as to the indiscretion of the statement by Mr. . Hart quoted. It is the position of the legal mind which looks upon established law j as a sacred thing, and gives too little : ■ regard to the fact that it may have been ; promulgated, as. in the present caee, "altogether without the consent or desire of the majority. Subversive and coercive laws have been made to rest heavily on the Samoans. There' is no possibility of getting away from that, and eo the less reference made to them the better. In the midst of the tension that exists I here now the tactlessness of such talk is on a par with the tactlessness that has had a large share in creating this embroiled and uncertain situation. It is • on a par, or nearly so, with the talk of "'sedition," "discipline" and "disloyalty," words neither properly applicable nor fair in the premises. The injustice with -which the Samoans have been treated, far more, of course, by the previous Administrations than by the present one, does not reconcile them to warnings in respect of laws which they resent and which, in more, than one case, they have every reason and right to resent. And when it comes to talk of navy and police to enforce those laws, 1 why, it is very easy for a resentful ' people to interpret it as a threat. Anyone who knows Mr. Hart under- ! stands that he did not mean to threaten the Samoans, and that he is doing his ! beet to placate them. Whether any ■ other man could do more is debatable, ■ but certainly he has gained their friendship in far larger measure than did his predecessors. Vain Aspirations. But there are things he could not '• grant if he would, things that no one . could grant, and among them are the Mau's verbose and detailed pleas in con- ; nection with their petitions to the i Powers, to Great Britain in the matter ■ of her alleged obligations • under old ! treaties, references to the German "proj tectorate," when it was actually nothing of the sort, to the "status" of Samoa, ■ and so on/ Several, foolscap page? of ; this have been submitted to Mr. ! Hart, and it is a useless waste of_ time. ' The thing to do, and the only thing to ! do, is to reconcile this situation as under New Zealand rule, because there isn't i b chance in a hundred thousand that that rule will be relinquished. Dispus- : sion and prolix petitions along such lines to everybody from the American Conpress to the Prince of Wales, are getting the Samoans nowhere, and never will. Advice, which is alleged to have been given them, to hold out and a "protectorate like Tonga," if not "complete independence," will be secured for them, is netting them nowhere either; and it is, "too, a flagrant misleading of them ' that can do nothing but harm, and, maybe, a great deal of harm. That ie the Administration's position, and it is supported by practically every European in Samoa and by a majority , of the half-castes. That fact is significant, for at least three out of every : four of these people sympathise with the Samoans, believe they have been unjustly treated by the two Adminis- ' tratione preceding the present, and that too little attempt has been made by ! New Zealand to understand them and Ito administer them sympathetically. " Eut the past is done and cannot be undone, and the thing to do now is to ■ face the situation as it is to-day and to deal with it in an atmosphere free •of suspicion and resentment. The Ad- ' ministration feels that such an atmosphere could not exist in a conference ' with Mr. Nelson leading the Samoan pause, because of Mr. Nelson's implacable hostility toward the Mandatory. More Reasonable Pleas. Getting down to requests that have =ome basis in fact and reason, rather : than in theory and fantasy, the Samoans have the best of ground for asking the of restrictive ordinances, for such measures as will reduce the expenses of the New Zealand Administration, for assurances against any possible repetition of the military activities. : which forced high chiefs to hide in the j bush and submitted the women they had .'left behind to indignities, for a revision of import and export tariff scales, for an admission of qualified natives to official posts, and especially the pro- • vision of such legal and medical training as will in time provide that quah..fication, and certain other things.

And then, under the heading of "Reparations," the Mau make bequests that should receive serious consideration from New Zealand. They ask a refund to the Samoan Administration of some of the sums expended to maintain here a wluto police force, on the contention that such a force should never have been established; and however that claim may lie, the premise is one of the soundest of all the Samoan grievances. They also ask compensation for the families of those killed in December, 1929, and no fair-minded person can deny their right to that for an instant, or will deny it. The demand for compensation for "Taiei" is not apt to be complied with, although the Mau rather assuredly declares "we feel it our solemn duty to see by every peaceable means available to us a restoration of their status as fret; citizens of their native country and reparation for all their financial and commercial losses." The pronoun "their" refers to Mr. Nelson's children who have "suffered heavily by the exile of their father and by the financial losses sustained by him." Mau Must Deal Direct. This, in the event that there was anybody able impartially to adjudicate such an involved point, would entail considerably more of a financial burdan upon New Zealand tin n would seem reasonable under present conditions, nor is there any evidence that Mr. Nelson is less than very comfortably well off at present, despite his "financial and losses." But inasmuch .is the killings of December, 1929, were, in the last analysis, the outcome of a blunder, any neutral tribunal in the world would allot compensation as requested. For New Zealand to do this would be to make a very conciliatory gesture toward the Snmoans, but they can expect neither that nor any of the rest of their requests unless they will deal with the Mandatory directly, and not through one of only part Samoan blood whom the Mandatory considers its implacable foe. And so there the matter rests at present.