SAMOAN REQUESTS.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIV, Issue 182, 3 August 1920, Page 5

SAMOAN REQUESTS.

A LlßOll ALLEGATION

[from our correspondent, j

WELLINGTON, Aug. 2.

During discussion of the question of continuing indentured labor in Samoa it was- alleged by all the official Labor members who spoke that in a petition put before the Parliamentary party at a meeting with the natives on the first day of the -visit one request had been eliminated. The., suggestion-was that all the narti\es had been approached privately a I'd had mentioned that their most important request-was for a cessation or indentured labor in the group, but there is no reference to this subject in the -twenty-seven requests put before the New Zealand legislators. As this allegation was not referred to by. the Government members who spoke during Friday night's debate, your correspondent interviewed the Eon. Mr Lea, Minister for. External Affairs, to ascertain his view of the matter.

Ihe Minister flatly denied that theie had been any elimination of requests from the petition. ! In proof he produced tl-.e original : petition, signed by the various chiefs, who also appended their signatures to a translation. In each case it was evident that the documents had not been altered, and that the English translation had been reproduced exactly in the original form in the printed report of the Island visit which was presented to tho House. Ihe requests had apparently been "framed' .»t a conference of the .natives, lasting from February 2pt\i to: February 28th. They wer-* set forth' in the form of a petition,, signed by 31' chiefs. Tho Parliamentary party nceived them on March sth, the first clay of the visit, and, said the Minisvwv, neither' the legislators nor the Sanioa.n Administrator who travelled with the party from New Zealand knew what tho petitions contained until they were formally presented.