THE OUTLOOK IN SAMOA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20519, 21 March 1930, Page 12

THE OUTLOOK IN SAMOA.

Such progress as has been made toward the restoration, of the mandatory power's authority in Samoa increases the Government's responsibility toward the Administration; to regard the present position complacently, to leave the Administrator without adequate support in his task of maintaining law and order, would be a mistake of the gravest magnitude. The first consideration clearly must be to ensure respect for and obedience to the Government, and that implies the of a sufficient force of police. Cabinet's decision to disband the special force now at Trentham appears to have been needlessly hasty. It certainly should not have been made without an explicit recommendation from the Administrator, and in the absence of any reference to such advice in the Prime Minister's statement, it is necessary to ask whether he was consulted on this important matter. Even if there is ho apparently immediate need for despatching the special force of police to Samoa, it should not be dispersed until the attitude of the natives and the conduct of the Mail organisation have been positively determined. In respect of misleading propaganda, to which the Prime Minister refers, the Administration is entitled to more active assistance than request to the mischievous outsiders; to desist. The Mau has been declared a seditious organisation: all competent observers are agreed that the organisation is being kept alive by systematic stimulation from New Zealand. Nothing has apparently been done to. check these activities, deliberately conducted to inspire and . foment insurgence against the constitutional government of the territory. Their curtailment need not place any restrictions upon the liberty of speech, though it is questionable whether that privilege is not forfeited by those whose utterances proclaim their irresponsibility and inability to appreciate the character of the Government's duty in this grave undertaking. But action should be taken, the more promptly and decisively since it has been so reprehensibly delayed, to prevent the organised circulation of J mischievous propaganda among the I Samoans. It is doubly justified, for j not only are the natives being con- : stantly supplied with misrepresenta{tions of official policy and actions but they are also being misled by specious and unreliable promises. There is no doubt of the necessity for the instruction of the native leaders, by exemplary sentences, in an understanding of the law's requirements. It is also necessary that the law should be applied with equal impartiality to those agencies in New Zealand which are defying the Government and the Administration by encouraging the Mau in its seditious activities. It is not sufficient to hope that misleading propaganda will now cease. It is the Government's duty to stop it.