Mr Holland on Samoa Unrest

Evening Star, Issue 19773, 25 January 1928, Page 4

Mr Holland on Samoa Unrest

“BIG STICK” POLICY FAILS

Bitter Offence to Proud People

Mr H. E. Holland, M.P., Leader of the Opposition, has issued the foi lowing reply to the Prime Minister’s statement in relation to the position in Samoa:—

“While Mr Coates’s statement is extremely unconvincing as an attempt to justify his Government’s line of action in Samoa, it is supremely interesting, inasmuch as it constitutes a sweeping refutation of some of the most important reports which have come from the Administration in recent months. Hitherto in his reports to the New Zealand Government General Richardson has asked the people of the dominion to believe that there was no dissatisfaction .in Western Samoa with his administration. We were told the disaffection was on the part of only a few Europeans and a small number of natives. Now, if the Prime Minister’s official statement is correct, the situation in Samoa is much as it wars in Ireland between the Easter week insurrection in 1916 and the constitution of the Free State.

'“The King’s writ is not running, Mr Coates says. ‘ The Samoans are refusing to recognise the rule of the Administration. They won’t pay the fines inflicted upon them by the court, as m Robert Louis Stevenson’s day, when the Tripartite Government operated and Baron Von Pilsarch was president of the Municipal Council. They are refusing to pay their taxes, and in other ways they are demonstrating their resentment against the treatment which, the Administration is meting out to them.’ Mr Coates concludes his statement with a threat that ‘ a stronger course ’ is to be taken in Samoa, "and says that ‘the interests of a large number of natives are to he pieferred to the interests of a handful of Europeans,’ but he fails to explain why, if this is so, practically all of the Samoans are in revolt against his policy. Nor does he explain why a multitude of punishments is imposed, in the case of the Samoans, for offences for which he claims Europeans are responsible.

“In this matter Sir Coates contradicts himself, for, having put the blame on the Europeans, lie also says: ‘There can he no possibb doubt the present unfortunate state of affairs is due to the activities of the Man.’ He cannot have it both ways. The Man is a great organisation of Samoan people, and it exists despite every attempt to break it. The natives have been forbidden to contribute to its funds or join its membership. The Chief Judge has torn its membership badges from the coats ol chiefs. Recently certain Europeans have been ordered, under apparent threat of deportation, to bring about its dispersion—an utterly impossible task for any European —but my information is that, despite these things, the Mau is stronger than ever. The Government’s deportation orders, and its disregard for every fundamental principle of Magna Charta, have stiffened up the Samoan organisation and strengthened the natives, in their opposition to the New' Zealand Administration, adding yet another contradiction to the contradictory mass -which his statement represents.

“Mr Coates makes the frankest 01 frank confessions. He now says that the three citizens who have been deported have been guilty of neither crime nor offence, and that their deportation must be regarded, not as a penalty—not even as a judicial acthut as a preventive measure to facilitate the good government of the territory. I can imagine the amazement with which this pronouncement will be read by the world outside, and no doubt the said world will await Mr Coates’s next move, which possibly may take the form of deporting without trial his political opponents in the dominion to facilitate good government. REAL REASON FOR REVOLT. “ Mr Coates wholly evades reference to the real reasons why the Samoans are in revolt against the New Zealand administration. He must know that the dissatisfaction with the manner of appointment and the functions of the Fono of Faipules is one reason, and that another is the flagrant dishonoring of promises made by tiie New Zealand Government, including Sir James Parr’s promise that the Samoans would bo given representation in the Legislative Council. Not the work done by agitators, either European or Samoan, but our own maladministration, is the' cause of the grave unrest which exists to-day.

PUNISHMENT WITHOUT TRIAL. “Mr Coates makes no reference to the numerous punishments inflicted on Samoans during the past several years without any form of trial in a court of justice. Chiefs have been banished from island to island, and from village to village. Every such banishment is essentially an internment, for if a chief goes beyond the confines of the village named i$ his banishment order he is guilty of an offence, and is liable to be heavily sentenced. In a number _of cases, deprivation of the chiefly title has accompanied the banishment order, and since this means degradation, both for the chief and his family, the infliction of these punishments gravely offends the proud and dignified Samoan people. “Another cause of hostility to New -Zealand that Mr Coates does not mention is the fact bitterly commented upon by his own colleague, Sir Maui Pomare, that it is due to the criminal neglect of the dominion authorities that pneumonic influenza was taken to Western Samoa in 1918, resulting in more than a quarter of the population being wiped out. Only the most disinterested administration of Samoa by us will ever induce the Samoans to forget that tragedy. MANY GRIEVANCES. “When the Joint Samoan Committee was sitting the chairman (Sir James Allen), with the committee’s authority, sent a radiograph to Samoa definitely promising that when the committee’s report was ready for presentation to Parliament tije evidence

ADMINISTRATOR’S RECALL - DEMANDED

would be printed and tabled along ; w . the report. That promise was dis- ' honored as readily as it was made, and that it was dishonored is one of the facts that rankles in the Samoan mind. “ If, as Mr Coates says, the court in Samoa is being treated with contempt, is not the Government itself responsible? After the chief judge had been charged with insulting behaviour, calculated to cause a breach of the peace, and after he had been found guilty and fined for the offence, be was permitted to retain his position, and continue in the work of heavily penalising Samoans for much lighter offences. When, without rebuke, the Administrator is permitted to make adverse comments on court decisions that displease him, and to jubilate concerning decisions that please him, is it any wondc: the natives also lightly view the court and its verdicts? Moreover, w-hen such shocking scandals as the Foster case and another are carefully hushed up, so far as New Zealand is concerned, are wo to expect the Samoans, who know the facts, to seriously respect our administration of the law? Although it has been stated repeatedly that certain Europeans—six in particular—have been guilty of various acts, on no single occasion has a definite charge been laid, or a case been proved in the court against any of the Europeans referred to.

NOTHING TO CHARGE AGAINST THEM. “Mv Coates says he has ‘found it hard to understand the solicitude that has been shown for Mr Nelson and his colleagues by the Leader of the Labor Party, and by a section of our own Press and the public.’ If that is so, Mr Coates does not understand the elementary principles of justice in civilised countries, which provide that men accused of offences against the law shall be given a fair trial. If Mr Coates were being threatened with deportation from his native land without having been charged with an offence, and without any form of trial, I should show the same solicitude in his case as i have shown in Mr Nelson’s. I should insist that he be accorded the same right of trial that would be given in the case of any other accused. It cannot be argued that there is not sufficient power under the law to reach offenders. The enactments of the Germans in their essentials were repeated by us, and our additional ordinances provide most severe penalties for persons who break the law in Samoa, The fact that no charge has been laid against Europeans must be taken as a proof that there has never been evidence to wmrrant a prosecution, and now, for no proved offence whatever, as Mr Coates confessed, men who aro native born or permanently resident are being deported from Samoa. The only offence suggested that they have been guilty of is that of constitutional opposition to the Administration. fn the last Legislative Council election, notwithstanding the restricted franchise which leaves 75 per cent, of the Europeans without votes, and also, notwith-

standing the vigorous official .canvassing, the Government’s opponents defeated, by more than two to one, the candidates who supported the policy of the Administration, In an election with all the adult Europeans voting, no European standing in support of the Government should hope to poll 20 per cent, of the European votes, and no Samoan supporter of the Government would poll that percentage of Samoan votes, assuming that tho Samoans had the right to vote; and yet the definite attitude of the Government is that whoever offers constitutional opposition to the Administration is to be threatened with a deportation sentence. It is hardly a commendable way of getting rid of opponents who win out at the polls.

“ I have noted with much interest

that Mr Coates avoids all inference to the illegal promulgation of the 1927 Ordinance amending the Samoa Immigration Consolidation Order, and the illegal threats of deportation which were made by the Minister of External Affairs and the Administrator immediately that unconstitutional Order in Council was gazetted. That adventure into illegality was responsible for as much unrest in Samoa as any other single act of the present or any other preceding Administration.” LIQUOR FREELY MADE.

“Mr Coates declares that the two chief causes of white discontent in Samoa are the prohibition of liquor and the Administrator’s experiment in the handling of the sale of native copra. Of course, the Prime Minister knows that the Opposition has frequently made it clear that it would stand against the introduction of liquor into the Islands, but he covers up the fact that intoxicating Jiquor is being freely manufactured in Western Samoa., both by natives and Europeans, and I have no doubt he knows it was given in evidence before the Joint Samoa Committee that officials of his Administration

are among the chief offenders. As to the experimental policy of the Administration in selling native copra, it would be information if the Prime Minister would furnish to the public the figures showing the quantities of native copra sold and the prices obtained. I know that good prices have been obtained, but I understand that the quantity of native copra handled is comparatively small. I am quite prepared to believe that private Capitalism opera-t----in Samoa would not be very different from private Capitalism operating in New Zealand, but if there is a danger of the natives being exploited in this connection an easy way out of the difficulty would be by the Administration nationalising the sale of copra. When I suggested this to Mr Coates in the House he appeared to think such a course would constitute a serious interference with private enterprise.

“ Mr Coates makes somewhat extensive reference to the recent Commission’s report and evidence. In this he h . me at a for up to the present he has withheld from myself and all other members of Parliament the Commission’s report and evidence, notwithstanding his promise