The Dominion SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1925. NEW ZEALAND AND SAMOA

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 78, 26 December 1925, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1925. NEW ZEALAND AND SAMOA

At a function which took place at Government House on Christmas Eve, additional and interesting proof was given of the contentment with which the people of Western Samoa regard their political association with New Zealand. Carrying out a commission with which he had been entrusted by the Council of Faipules (the Native Parliament) the Administrator of Samoa (MajorGeneral Sir George Richardson) presented to His Excellency the Governor-General certain articles of historic significance. The speech in which the spokesman of the Council of Faipules asked that these articles should be transmitted to Nev. Zealand contains much in which the people of’the Dominion may find cause for honest pride and satisfaction. On behalf of the people of Samoa, this spokesman (Toelupe) declared that the presentation was “a mark of our appreciation and confidence and whole-hearted trust in New Zealand." It is, of course, a familiar fact that this happy state of affairs is in great part made. possible by the enthusiasm, judgment, and foresight the present Administrator of Samoa has brought to bear upon his important duties. Evidence of what he has accomplished is to be found not only in the generous expressions of the people over whom he is appointed to rule, but in (he recorded particulars of recent progress in Samoa. The disclosed results of wise and considerate government arc good in themselves, and still better as they bear upon the future of our mandated territory. Under New Zealand rule the people of Samoa are enjoying economic prosperity, and much evidently may be hoped from what is being done to improve their health and develop their educational institutions. In his last annual report the Administrator stated that from his own observation there was a very marked improvement in the health of the Natives. The rate of infantile mortality is still very high, but experiment on a limited scale has demonstrated the possibility of saving many infant lives, and a comprehensive child-welfare scheme has now been launched. A distinctly optimistic view of this problem is taken in a report by the Department of Health of Western Samoa. The birth-rate among the people of Samoa is so large under normal conditions, it is observed, “that with a death-rate lowered by preventive medicine population figures will soon show a large enough increase to produce plenty of surplus labour for white plantations or necessitate an enlargement of their plantations by the Natives, with increased exports and imports for the country. Samoa is well along on the road to this happy condition with her increasing population of healthy, contented Natives.” The progress that is being made on these lines is due in a considerable degree to the fact that Sir George Richaidson is evidently taking long views in his administration and is alive to the wisdom and necessity, in dealing with some parts of his. exacting task, of making haste slowly. “The policy I have been instructed by the Government to carry out,” he remarks in the report already quoted, “is not to educate the Samoans to become European in their outlook, but to make them better Samoans, with a pride of race and a love of country and a desire to promote their mateiial wealth by increased efforts to develop their lands. Such a policy obviously must be worked out in some respects gradually, and its application and development, demand rare qualities of patience and toleration as well as of practical enteiprise. Thein is convincing evidence that these demands are being met admit ably by Sir George Richardson and those who are working under his directions in Samoa. Conditions have been established in which the Samoan people, through their Council of Faipules, arc co-operating actively with the New Zealand Administration for the betteimcnt and advancement of their race.