SAMOAN UNREST

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 February 1929, Page 9

SAMOAN UNREST

LATE EDITION

THE GOVERNMENT POLICY.

ENFORCEMENT OF LAW. PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT. (By —Press Association.) W ELLINGTON, Feb. 1. The Prime Minister, tue Tit. Eon. Sir Joseph Ward, made- the following statement to-day: •’The Government lias considered very carefully trie situation m Western Samoa and it is thought- advisable at this juncture to mane a public statement. In the first place the Government wishes to make it piain that it cannot tolerate or negotiate with any movement that is openly suversive of good Government in the territory. Samoans must understand that any failure to obey the law will be punished and that the Government must act rigorously in this direction should future events unhappily render it necessary. “The Administrator and the New Zealand Government are, However, anxious to bring to an end the dissension in the territory aha immediately those Samoans wpo are members or the Mau have the good sense to abandon their attitude of passive resistance and cease their refusal to pay taxes, His Excellency and the Government will be prepared to consider any representation in a generous spirit. The Government earnestly trusts that wise counsels will prevail, and that all wiio have the true interests of Western Samoa at heart will assist in pointing ou to the Mau the path of wisdom and of honour and the disastrous consequences to Samoa of a continuation of the present attitude.”