SAMOA.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19196, 30 December 1927, Page 6

SAMOA.

PROPOSED DEPORTATIONS. MR H. E. HOLLAND'S COMMENT. (PRESS ASSOCIATION' TELEGRAM.) GREYMOUTH, December 29. Mr H. E. Holland, Lender of the Opposition, who officially opened the Runanga Domain yesterday, spoke last night at a banquet in Runanga in reference to the Samoan deportations. These he characterised as a shocking administrative outrage that would make the name of New Zealand a by-word throughout the civilised world. The men who were being deported wore guilty of nothing more than constitutional opposition to the policy of the New Zealand Administration in Samoa, and the Government could have no moro justification for their deportation than it would have if it sought to deport members of the official Opposition here. Mr Nelson was one of the properly elected Parliamentary representatives of the European people in Samoa, and his deportation would stand for an intimation to both Europeans and Samoans that they must not expect to gain redress of their legitimate grievances through constitutional channels. Mr Nelson was a native-born Samoan, and the two other elected representatives, who also were threatened with deportation, had been long years in Samoa. Mr Westbrook had been there for more' than fifty years. The New Zealand Government had taken the worst of the German Ordinances and had addod to them in such a way as to clothe the Administration with far greater tyrannical power than was over possessed by the Imperial German Governor of Samoa, and now the predominant idea was that Samoa was to be militaristically ruled, and both whites and Samoans were to be bludgeoned into compliance with tho will of the Dictatorship. The New Zealand Government would not dare to impose the same rule on the Maoris of the Dominion, nor would it dare to apply to the Europeans hero the methods that it was applying to the Europeans who were its political opponents in Samoa. Finally, Mr Holland condemned what he described as the manner in which information relating to the deportations had been withheld from the public. No Press messages had gone out, and it was only that day that he had learned that on December 24th a Wellington paper had mentioned tho Government's decision. The report of the recent Royal Commission was still withheld from members of Parliament.