SAMOA

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21116, 17 March 1934, Page 20

SAMOA

TO THE XDITOB OP THE PBESS. Sir.—On certain aspects of your argument I heartily agree with you, fullv realising that there have arisen in the Samoan group economic and political problems, owing almost entirely to the residence and trade of the Europeans, that call for thoughtful consideration. There arc, too, psychological considerations no less important. I have always contended that the failure of our administration in these islands has been principally due to a lamentable lack of knowledge of the psychology of the inhabitants. But I must part company with you when you say that "it is not permissible to discuss the Samoan problem in terms of right and wrong until its economic and psychological aspects have been examined end disposed of." Why? You admit that "in a sense, of course, all problems of human conduct are in the last analysis ethical problems, since the final test of human action must be whether it subserves what a philosopher might call the ultimate good." But, I ask, why leave the test to the "last analysis" and not apply it to the first? You will concede, I am sure, that there is a right and a wrong treatment of all peoples, irrespective altogether of our political, psychological, or economic knowledge. The whole framework of our laws is reared upon ethical principles. Just and righteous government stands or falls on ethical principles and not upon our knowledge of the psychology of those governed. I would go a step further and say that our own Government has thought well to impose penalties upon the Samoans for breaches of purely ethical principles, without any consideration of either psychological, economic, political, or religious problems. Had it weighed its decisions in the scale of right and wrong it would have refrained from imposing laws upon a race who are, in the phraseology of our international wiseacres, merely children. To apply the laws suitable to grown manhood indiscriminately to

LU £lUWil iiiauuwww r * - the nursery is neither right nor just. All problems of human conduct are ethical, and we shall be successful in the governance of Samoa when we apply the test of right and wrong to our actions there, and not until then.— Yours, etc.. & r MACKIK March 16, 1934. TO THE ZDITOR Or THE TKESS. Sir, —I am pleased to accept Mr Bell's invitation for "Sunday three weeks," which is April 8, I take it; with the proviso that if Mr Shaw (my double) should be speaking here on that evening I would like to hear and see him. Conan Doyle put it on record that I "wielded a facile pen. I am flattered again by Mr Bell's "fertile pan." About the "multitudinous products" of that same pen, I would like to propose the following Proportion sum. If you take up 11 inches of space every two weeks, and I appear twice a week on 3J inches (I ve just measured our respective letters), what is the difference in inches in our products? However. I can boast that I have never provoked the Editor so far as to draw him with a leading article; and I try to keep my handwriting at its best so as not to provoke him in that direction. It won't take long to get all I know about Samoa off my chest. I would like to take part in a discussion on some of the social problems of man. taking the monetary problem as th most pressing one, seeing that it is driving us into primitive methods oi road making. Yes, there is a piece of street formation being done by hand, I don't think the men are going to be told to carry the spoil m their hats. It would be interesting to have Mr Shaw's comments on this. —Yours, etC " PETER TROLOVE. March 16, 1934.