The Press Monday, September 9, 1929. Samoa.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19719, 9 September 1929, Page 8

The Press Monday, Septem ber 9, 1929. Samoa.

It is unfortunate lhat Mr H. E. Holland, the lieader of the Labour Party, should have contributed to the discussion of the reports on the mandated territory of Western Samoa the series of aggressive remarks reported on Saturday. In view of the Prime Minister's sensible reminder that members should weigh the effect of their words on a Samoan audience, it is clear that Mr Holland was determined to speak rhetorically and dangerously. To talk of " Ireland's tragic history of " seven hundred years being re-enacted " in miniature as the result of the poli y " in regard to Western Samoa" and of the Government's continuing a " disas- " trous policy" is a sure way of obstructing any policy of reconciliation aud reconstruction; and to say that "no Government would dare to put " into operation against the Maoris " in New Zealand the policy that was " being employed in Samoa" is the worst kind of nonsense. Certainly nc Government would " dare" to tyrannise over the native race—if the word applies to a crime unthought of and unthinkable and motiveless; but the suggestion is meant to create disgust and indignation, and the disgust and indignation are meant to be illogicaily extended to the treatment of the Sainoans, as if that were in fact what base misgovernment of the Maori is in imagination. But of course it is not. Again, the " true condition of affairs " revealed by the report of the Public Service Commissioner and his colleagues, early this year, is not the same thing as the state of Samoa and the Samoans under the Mandate, though Mr Holland- confuses them. It is a very severe criticism of faults in the administering of Samoa, but of faults by no means directly connected with those grievances of the Mau which were investigated and dismissed by the Skerrett-McCormick Commission and by tl Mandates Committee of the League of Nations. As we have said, such criticism as Mr Holland's is dangerous; it can have none but an adverse effect in Samoa, and if it is harmless in New Zealand that is the best that can be said for it. But it would be idle to say that New Zealand is making a success of its Mandate. The Administration has always meant well, but good intention:. have not been sufficient to save it from unhappy blunders; and nothing that has yet been done, either by imj. essing the Dominion's friendliness, or asserting its firmness, or improving its methods, has gone very far to retrieve them. If we are to continue to hold the Mandate, patience and good will must be inexhaustible, and expert help must be trained, or called in from outside the Dominion This is what Mr Coates was referring to, although Sir Apirana Ngata had some strange difficulty in following him. But it is not at all sure that New Zealand need oi should continue to hold the Mandate. Sit Apirana himself referred to the different and happier state which would have obtained if Great Britain had all alont, held control. It would be a great mistake for New Zealand, out of the obstinacy of pride and for no better reason, to persist in an attempt in which success might eventually be achieved but in which Great Britain could succeed sooner and more completely. The more hastily this possibility is rejected the more likely it is that it is rejected for wrong reasons.