SAMOA.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19854, 15 February 1930, Page 14

SAMOA.

PROTEST MEETING HELD.

Protests against the present policy of the New Zealand Government m Samoa were made at a meeting in Victoria square last evening, the speakers being Messrs H. T. Armstrong, M.p., G. R. M. Mackie, and N. M. Bell. , Mr Armstrong- criticised tne militaristic administration the present Government was conducting, declaring that New Zealand had failed so hopelessly in its dealings with the Samoans that it should hand the administration back to the League of Nations with a request that another country be put in charge of the islands. Messrs Bell and Mackie also advocated conciliatory methods, and the abandonment of the training of military police for service in Samoa, which was being carried out. A small numoer of people listened to the speeches', and carried the following resolutions: — '(That this meeting of Christchurch citizens views with grave concern the recent events in Western Samoa, and the dispatch of a military police force, and calls upon, the Government to institute a full and impartial enquiry into the whole circumstances leading up to the killing of a number of Samoans on December 18th, 1929." "That this meeting of Christchurch citizens holds that the Samoan question has now become one of such importance than an immediate session of Parliament is necessary to consider it, and farther is of opinion that if the present Government will not reverse its present policy of repression (evidenced by the drafting of _ fresh armed police to Samoa) a policy in utter Variance to the wh6le spirit of the recently signed Kellogg Pact—the Labour Party should move a vote of no confidence in the Government direct, ly on the Samoan issue."