POPULATION DOUBLED
WESTERN SAMOA CHANGE
EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATION The native population of Western Samoa is now estimated at 60,000 — double that of 1920, when New Zealand took over the mandate, states an article in the Pacific Islands Monthly. This phenomenal increase is thought to be the result of improved health — and of the work of the native medical practitioners trained in the medical schools in Suva, who have been sent to the country districts to establish dress-ing-stations and hospitals, and who have won the confidence of the native people by their skill and knowledge. Through them, the local chiefs have seen to it that their villages are kept in a sanitary condition. "The 'P.I.M.' for years has described the stolid, unenterprising, unimaginative rule of New Zealand in Samoa as "Old Granny Government'; and it retracts nothing of what it has said about the stupidities of New Zealand's administrative policy," the article proceeds. "But for the last 10 years New Zealand has been exceedingly well served in Samoa by a succession of devoted officials, led by Mr. A. C. Turnbull; and though the country has been stagnant, the natives have been well ana conscientiously cared for. New Zealand stubdeclines to call Mr. Turnbull anything but 'Acting Administrator.' Yet he has been 'acting' as Administrator since 1935, and New Zealand has never had, in Samoa, a chief executive who has brought the Territory so much real peace and native progress. 'Acting Administrator' (limited pay and pension rights) for seven years! Could the meanness and parsimony of Wellington go further?"
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Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 41, 18 February 1943, Page 4
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256POPULATION DOUBLED Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 41, 18 February 1943, Page 4
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