THE GOVERNMENT OF SAMOA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20650, 23 August 1930, Page 14

THE GOVERNMENT OF SAMOA.

Sir,—-As one of the signatories to a petition now being circulated for an investigation into Samoan affairs, I wish to reply to the criticism offered by Archdeacon Mac Murray in a letter which appeared in your issue of Wednesday last. Archdeacon Mac Murray declines to sign the petition in the first place because it asks for an inquiry by " some external and impartial authority." The afchdeacon, no doubt inadvertently, misrepresents the petition when he quotes it as stating that no New Zealand Court "would be received as wholly impartial at the bar of public opinion." The petition does not refer to any New Zealand Court, but states that " no inquiry conducted by representatives or nominees of the New Zealand Government " would be satisfactory. This is surely evident enough. The. New Zealand Government, in regard to the administration of affairs in Samoa, is, for the purposes of such an inquiry, virtually on its trial, and the verdict of its representatives could hardly be accepted as unbiassed. But there is nothing in tho petition that suggests lack of competence or of impartiality in regard to any New Zealand Court. Moreover, it is not only the people of the Dominion who, need to be satisfied in this matter; we have to consider public opinion in the outside world as well. Further, Archdeacon MacMurray holds that' " it is impossible to sign this petition without implicitly reflecting upon the Administrators." But the archdeacon must have read the paragraph in the petition which explicitly repudiates any intention of " reflecting in any invidious way upon the character or the motives of the Administrators, or the capacity of the Governments that have supported them." Surely that is enough to dispose of this objection. I am not quits clear whether the archdeacon's reference to the alleged failure of Auckland University College " to give a lead in public life,'' during his 40 years' experience of it, is intended as a compliment or not. But if it is meant for a reproof, I may respectfully remind the archdeacon that a university has always at its command facilities for encouraging and directing the growth of public opinion which enable it to "give a lead in public life " perhaps not so obviously, but in the long run quite as effectively, as the platform, the press, or the pulpit. However, the university professors who have signed this petition have done so ns individual citizens, without any reference to the institutions with which they are associated, and the archdeacon's views about Auckland University College are, therefore, quite irrelevant to the main issue., J. p. Grossmann. , University College, Auckland. .