SAMOAN ENQUIRY

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 September 1927, Page 7

SAMOAN ENQUIRY

PETITIONERS HOLD ALOOF NO EVIDENCE TO OFFER (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 9. Following on correspondence relating to the Samoan Commission, of which pieces have already been telegraphed, . Messrs Findlay, Hoggard, Cousins, and Wright have sent a letter to the Prime Minister in the following terms: “Re the Samoan Royal Commission: We are instructed by the Hon. Mr Nelson to notify you that neither he nor the other parties to the Samoan Petition, heard recently by a Joint Committee of both Houses, will appear, be represented, or call evidence before this Royal Commission, and we are instructed to inform you that the reasons for Mr Nelson and other petitioners deciding upon and taking this course are as folllow: — (1) That it is impossible for the petitioners before the time at which the Commission is to sit in Samoa to see witnesses, collect evidence, and prepare their case for hearing by the Commission. (2) That the order of reference is so narrow in the scope of investigation. It directs that many of the petitioners’ most urgent and important grievances cannot be inquired into by the Commission, including the deportation of Europeans. (3) That no sufficient guarantee has been given by the Government against molestation or interference of, or with, the petitioners and their witnesses. We may state, in explanation of this decision of the petitioners, that the treatment by the Government of the petition has been grossly unfair and oppressive, from the start: (1) In the first place, Ministers of the Crown, in the House, have made propagandist statements, calculated to prejudice the fair hearing of the petition; (2) The Government set up the Joint Committee, not "with a. view to eliciting the true facts, hut on Party lines, and with a view to preventing the petitioners making known their side of the case to the public, by the exclusion of the press; (3) Although the Government made up its mind, possibly before the Committee sat, at all events at an early stage whilst the committee was sitting, that a Royal Commission should be appointed, it deliberately deferred the announcement and allowed the inquiry before the Committee to proceed; (4) We at once, on the announcement that a Royal Commission would be set up, asked, in writing, for a copy of the Order of Reference, an application we had your assurance would be considered. The petitioners were entitled to assume that a draft of the Order of. Reference was to be submitted to their counsel, and you did not definitely refuse until the last moment to permit a copy of the draft order of reference to be seen; (5) The petitioners are entitled to infer that your procuring the commission t proceed to Samoa, at such shoit notice to the petitioners, was designed to place them at a disadvantage, and this inference can more safely be made because, as soon as. the petitioners’ counsel was furnished with the date when the Commission would proceed to Samoa, he imjmediately communicated with you, explaining that the time that would be allowed the petitioners to see witnesses, collect evidence, and prepare their case, was utterly inadequate, and they earnestly asked you to arrange for further time being afforded them. In support of these observations, it might be pointed out to you that Mr Nelson came down to New Zealand to give .evidence before the Joint Committee and that a Royal Commission would be set up, there has been no vessel available to take him back to Samoa, the first vessel being the Tofua, by which the Commission will be passengers on Saturday next.”

THE PREMIER'S REJOINDER. 9 WELLINGTON, September 10. The Prime, Minister has replied to the Council’s letter as follows: — “It appears to me possible that your clients are acting under a mistaken view of the reasons for the constitution of the Commission. The Commission has not been issued at the instance of your clients, or for their satisfaction. The object and purpose of the Commission is, firstly to provide an opportunity for persons whether Europeans or Samoans, who complain of actions of the Administration _to bring their grievances before an impartial tribunal, and secondly to enable the Government of New Zealand, which administers the mandate for Western Samoa, to satisfy itself by an impartial report, whether there is good and just reason for a change, either in the methods of the Administration, or in the personnel of the Mandatory Government. If your clients refuse to assist the Royal Commission in its inquiries, their course will hardly be consistent with their often repeated demand for an impartial investigation, but cannot prevent the performance by the commission of its duty. The definition of the order of the reference is a matter for the Government of New Zealand, and not for the petitioners, but its terms are so wide that all subject matter of complaints, which have been made, is within the jurisdiction of the Commission. Your reference to deportation of Europeans is a matter which cannot be properly referred to the Royal Commission, inasmuch as it would involve an enquiry by such Commission into the merits of an Act the Parliament of New Zealand passed during its present session. Your third reason is that no sufficient guarantee has been given by the Government against molestation, oi interfeience of or with petitioners and their witnesses. It is difficult foi me to believe that in this you are serious, or to understand how a demand foi such guarantee from the Government of any His Majesty’s Dominions can be construed, otherwise than as a deliberate affront, by its assumption that the Government would be guilty of conduct against which such guarantee would guard.”

MR NELSON’S EXPLANATION. (Special to "Star. ) AUCKLAND, Sept. 10. Neither the Hon. O. F. Nelson nor his counsel, Sir John Findlay, K.C., will sail for Samo’a with the Commission. . The only evidence tendered to the Commission, Mr Nelson declares, will be that given by the Administrat-

ive and its supporters in the territory. “When the announcement was made that a Royal Commission would be appointed,” said Mr Nelson yesterday, “I tried, through Sir John Findlay, to get the Prime Minister to submit to him, as representing the petitioners and myself, the personnel of the Commission, and the order of reference. I stayed on in Wellington for an extra week after the sittings of the Select Committe had closed, in the hope of getting this so as to enable me to discuss the matter with my counsel. Finally I had to leave. I was quite startled last Monday evening, when by the courtesy of the “Herald.” I was informed over the telephone that after a Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister had announced the personnel and order of reference. In spite of repeated representations by Sir John Findlay, none of our requests have been agreed to by the Prime Minister on behalf of the New Zealand Government. I have therefore been advised, and have agreed to instruct my counsel, to say that under the circumstances, I do not see my way clear either to proceed to Samoa myself, or to advise the people who have appointed me to appear before the Royal Commission, or have intercourse with it in any way. “We asked for specific guarantees because we feared that without them we should be gravely hampered in presenting our case, or even prevented from doing so in any effective way. Why I had no guarantee even that if I went to Samoa I should not be deported. It would be impossible to prepare evidence without gathering the natives together, and it would also be necessary to collect funds to meet the cost of conducting the case. The Administration at present absolutely forbids the collecting of . funds for political purposes. We had no assurance without such guarantees as we asked, that the Administrator -would not use his powers to make the adequate presentation of our case impossible. We could not even get an assurance that we would be allowed representation by counsel at the Commission’s sittings. Personally, I might have allowed the thing to go but Sir John Findlay has advised me most emphatically that the people whom I represent must on no account take part in the proceedings on such unequal terms. “With regard to the time question, I was not so much concerned about being able to go to Samoa myself, and assist in preparing the case. It would have satisfied me if our people there had been given time but they have not.” * Referring to the question of grave charges against officials of the Samoan Administration, Mr Nelson said he had not introduced it, and would not have given evidence himself in support of the charges. However, ex officials now resident in New Zealand, had asked that the matter should be brought before the Commission and volunteered to give evidence upon it.