INDENTURED LABOUR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18411, 18 May 1920, Page 4

INDENTURED LABOUR.

THE SAMOAN POSITION. Mr E. J. Howard. M.P., gave an address to the Council of Churches last night on “ Indentured Labour in Samoa,” and replied to remarks made to the council by Mr L, M. Isitt, M.P., on the same subject a few weeks ago. Mr Howard said that he wished to strongly attack Mr Isitt’s statements. Mr Isitt had said that extreme Labour was biassed on the question. It was biassed in the same way as Mr Isitt would he biassed if he went into an hotel or on to a racecourse. The issue was not a political one, as Mr Isitt had said, but a moral one. There was no indentured labour at Pagopago, and the Americans dealt with copra . there by open tender. What the Parliamentary party found there was something to he admired, but New Zealand had made a mess of the Cook Islands, and why should it have control of Samoa ? Labour members were nob given a fair chance to make independent investigations in Samoa. As a result of their declaration that they would make their own inquiries, spies wore sent to watch them. Wherever the members went spies were pub on. The members never could get away from them. After describing an incident which he had witnessed on a Samoan plantation, Mr Howard said that the Labour Party was determined that that beautiful little piece of God’s earth would not be ruined by indentured labour. Labour members were acting on thp same sentiment as led the people of Christchurch to preserve Deans’s Bush for the sake of the birds If necessary, an appeal would be made to the League of Nations and to the whole world. In reply to a question, Mr Howard said that Samoa should bo given to the Samoans. Ho would not take away the properties of present planters, but would make them work under a Samoan Government. The Samoans could run Samoa, and it should he given back to them.

The Rev F. Copeland, who lived in Samoa for some years, said that the Samoans could not get along without European control. The present position was better than the position in preconsul days. In reply to a question, Mr Howard said that in one island 70 per cent and in another case 85 per cent of the copra plantations were kept clean by native labour. He would rather cut out every tree of every plantation than have a native population subjected to the evils of indentured labour. In reply to the Rev W. Ready, Mr Howard said that the members -were not allowed tn put questions to the Samoan chiefs. Sir James Allen would not allow them to put any questions to the chiefs. They were not allowed to meet the people. They were taken in official motor-cars to places where all officers wanted to take them. He could not believe how Mr Isitt could champion indentured labour at Samoa. He thought that Mr Isitt had made a mistake. Ho seemed to be obsessed with an idea that ho must fight extreme Labour, and that had led him to take up a different attitude on the Samoan question. Several members subjected Mr Howard to an examination as to the way in which members’ actions tvere controlled in Samoa, and the Rev .1. E. Archer said that Mt Howard had been treated discourteously.

The chairman (Dr Erwin) said that the churches would look to the council for a lead on the question. He suggested that, as both sides had been placed before the council it should form an opinion, after discussion, at next meeting and help to mould publio •opinion. This course was agreed to.