THE OUTLOOK IN SAMOA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20600, 26 June 1930, Page 10

THE OUTLOOK IN SAMOA.

News from Western Samoa, published to-day, gives ground for viewing the prospects of enduring peace there with great hopefulness. Not only has the recent official visit of the Administrator to the island of Savaii been marked by much cordiality on the part of Samoans in almost all the districts* but the fono of representatives of all parts of the territory has been a pronounced success. This fono, it will be remembered, was the outcome of the offer made to the Mau by the Administrator on the occasion of the visit of the Minister of Defence. In some quarters the idaa that the Samoans would accept the offer was openly scouted: the rift was said to be too great to be bridged. Happily, this forecast has been falsified. Every district in the territory has been represented, and there has been no dissension. The fono, it will be noted, was composed of nominees of the several Samoan districts, and half of its membership consisted of chiefs belonging to the old Fono of Faipule, whose meetings were suspended with a view to give the Samoans a fresh opportunity to express their mind about it and to test the possibility of creating a new organisation to take its place. As the Samoan way is to choose representatives by discussion until practical unanimity is reached, the European method of a ballot being quite foreign to tho Samoan mind, there is full assurance that in most instances the nominations were fully representative; where this has not been so, it could only be because malcontents did not participate in the discussions, and these instances are reported as being few. Most significant of all is the unanimous reaching, by this representative gathering, after prolonged consideration, of four resolutions setting up the new organisation, which is not, in reality, to be new at all, for the first and basic resolution favours the reconstitution of the suspended Fono of Faipule. This news of an amicable return to a vital point of the old order is very cheering. More particularly, the excellent spirit in which the Administrator's definite offer has been met promises a happy issue out of the trouble so long prevailing. / With so good a prospect of the re-establishment of harmony and co-operation, it would be a thousand pities if anything were illadvisedly said or done, either in Samoa or in New Zealand, to interfere with the progress of this reconciliation. The timo is opportune to make an appeal to all who have at heart the happiness of the Samoans —that they let the good work go on, and scrupulously refrain from doing anything that might revive the bitterness that has so promisingly given place to concord.