SAMOA AND INDENTURED LABOUR.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16803, 8 April 1920, Page 6

SAMOA AND INDENTURED LABOUR.

SIB JAMES ALLEN'S REPLY TO LABOUR PARTY. (FEESS AR=nrr.\TTOV TmT/EOIIAW.I WELLINGTON, April 7. Sir James Allen to-day offered a few comments to a "Dominion" reDorter on tho statement made on behalf of tho Labour Party by Mr H. E. Holland, M.P., regarding the Government's policy in Samoa. "Mr Holland's statement amounts to this," said the Minister: "That ho would prefer to see the islands revert to a state of nature rather than that indentured labour should be brought into the islands. Ho is face to faco then with the fact that the lessening of cultivation in these islands will shorten the supplies of food and other necessities for very many people who now draw their supplies from these islands, and for very many more who will do so if the land is more intensely cultivated. If tho islands aro allowed to revert to a state of nature, it must affcct the cost of living. Does Mr Holland want the cost of living to be increased, as it must inevitably be increased if we are going to cut down the world's supplies of such commodities as margarine, oilcako, rubber, cocoa, kapoc, sugar, tea, coffee, cotton, and soap? If we aro to allow these and other tropical lands to relapse into nature and go out of cultivation, this will be the inevitable result. Is the world to stand still or to go back? That is my answer to Sir Holland's points."