FROM SAMOA

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 17 March 1928, Page 5

FROM SAMOA

h'.M.S. DUNEDIN ARRIVES.

STATEMENT ON POSITION. PRIME MINISTER NOT READY. [by telegkaph—press association.] WELLINGTON, March 16. The cruiser Dunedin arrived from Samoa, to-day, bringing, despatches from the Administrator to the Government up to Sunday last. The Prime Minister stated this afternoon that he was not yet in a position to make any statement in regard to the position in Samoa, and doubted whether lie would be able to do so before to-morrow, as- it would take some time to get the facts together and give them the necessary consideration. No decision has yet been come to in regard to, a successor to Sir George Richardson, who, it is understood, leave for Geneva at the end of March.

AN HISTORICAL SUMMARY (Contributed.) As Samoa and Samoan affairs loom at present as dark cloudy over the Dominion's horizon, and, moreover, hallowed as it is by the fact that Fusitala sleeps “under the wide and starry sky” on the hill, of Yala, it may be well for us to crystallise our knowledge concerning the Samoan group. Situated slightly south of ' the equator, the islands are near the longitude where a day is, gained or lost when one is travelling, west or east. The meridian 171 degrees divides the group—to make use of Ouida’s- title—under‘two flags, for to the east of this parallel the islands are American and to the west British. Samoa thus has two capitals, Pago Pago, an American naval station, andi Apia, the British capital. This division gives a. clue to the troubled story of Samoa. The' ■ first, white people to visit the islands were the Dutch in 1727. The French followed some time after, but in neither case was a settlement established. The pioneers were the- London Missionary Society (1830), who were succeeded by an American naval mission, who explored and surveyed the group. By the middle of the nineteenth century a loose triple guardianship was arranged between Britain,’ Germany and the United States. An officer of the latter Power was given the right to form a naval station at Apia. This, however, was not ratified by his Government.

For many years afterwards Samoa was the sport of the three Powers. Suffice to- say that in 1877 the Germans made war on unhappy Samoa by deposing one king and setting up another. Squadrons of the three interested nations gathered and prepared for trouble. All will remember the great storm that swept down with all its fury over the islands in 1889. It seemed as if Nature, had taken a hand to mystify those wh6 had dared' to disturb the usual - serenity of the islands. The American and German cruisers were shattered in the teeth of the gale. The Calliope survived by putting to sea in the face of overwhelming odds. Although many golden deeds have been written in naval history since the Great War, yet the feat of the Calliope is in no wise dimmed-; it is a striking example of the efficiency of the silent service and to the gallantry of her men. We read l with pride and delight how the crew was cheered' by the_ men of the doomed American cruisers.

After the ineffective Berlin Act a division was made between Germany and, the United States. In 1914, the first year of the world- war, a- New Zealand force captured German Samoa —the first German colony to be taken during the war. The group is now oartv American and partly under New Zealand, the Dominion, administering Western Samoa under the mandate of the- League of Nations.