SAMOA CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 143, 21 June 1927, Page 6

SAMOA CONTROL

MINISTER'S STATEMENT

ATTACKED BY MR, HOLLAND

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

GREYMOUTH, 20th June.

Mr. 11. E. Holland, M.P., Leader of the Opposition, arrived at Grcyinoutli to-night on Ids way to Wellington for the session's opening.

Speaking with reference to Sir. Noswortliy's statement made at Suva affecting Samoa, Mr. Holland said the Sainoan position was altogether unsatisfactory, and would have to be seriously discussed by Parliament. It seemed to him that in our administration wo were copying some of the worst features of the German pre-war control. Parliamentary representation of both the Samoans and the whites was rendered farcical by reason of the fact that in the former case the faipulcs were appointed by the Administration, and in the latter case the electoral qualification was on a property and income basis.

_ Mr. Nosworthy liad omitted to mention that leading members of the deputation referred to by himself as agitators were members of the Legislative Council, elected by the white population with substantial majorities over the Government candidates. Notwithstanding that all the dice were loaded in favour of the latter, Mr. Nelson, stigmatised by Mr. Noswortliy, was the senior Legislative Councillor, and, so far as he (Mr. Holland) knew, was born in Samoa. The malting of an Order-in-Oouncil empowering the Administrator to order a native-born citizen or a naturalised subject to leave Samoa because he persisted in opposing the Government's policy there was an outrage which could not be permitted to go unchallenged. Mr. Noswortliy's attack on. those who sought to make constitutional changes was strangely similar to some of the attacks on Robert Louis Stevenson when he was engaged in demanding justice for Samoa and the Samoans some forty years ago.