SAMOAN MANDATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18736, 14 December 1922, Page 4

SAMOAN MANDATE

QUARTERLY REVIEW ARTICLE. mu6h needed information. (Frost Opr Own Correspondent.) LONDON, October 21. More than a year ago Sir James Allen read'an enlightening paper, before the Royal Colonial Institute concerning Samoa and New Zealand's Mandate for that territory. He was able to give first-hand information and dispel some of the delusions that exist in the minds of many people in this' conntry. That strange misconceptions persist regarding the islands and people of the Pacific was evident during the discussions of tho Permanent Mandates Committee, so that any further information published in this country regarding Samoa or any of the other mandated territories in lire Pacific is all, to the good. To. t.he October number of The Quarterly Review Mr W. H. Triggs contributes an article entitled “Samoa under New Zealand,” which, it may be hoped, will bo read by all those critics who base their remarks on excellent principles utterly unsupported by facts. Mr Triggs was a member of Iho Parliamentary party which visited tho group, after the Armistice, and he gives an interesting account of what was seen on that occasion. Ho is perfectly, outspoken concerning, the lamentable mischief done by (he Imperial Government in restricting the importatioir of labour, and he sets out very clearly tHo real facts regarding the Chinese, their relations with the native inhabitants, and the question of race purity. Those who have imagined that the-’ Samoan is specially immune from bodily ailments, and that the islands provide an opportunity of escaping from the diseases and other ill® supposed to bo peculiar to European civilisation will receive a rude shock on reading the 'real facts of the case. But Mr' Triggs is careful to explain whet the New Zealand Government has done and is doing to carry, out their trust. All those things, of course, are well known to the people of the dominion, but they are not known at all by ’ the general public in this country. Delusions will persist. .for many years to come, just as. they perS : at with regard, to New Zealand itself.. , It Is well, therefore, that this informative and interesting article should have appeared in such an 'influential journal. - •