THE SAMOAN REPORT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20282, 15 December 1927, Page 10

THE SAMOAN REPORT.

The report of the Royal Commission on the administration of Western Samoa has been well received in New Zealand. It has been criticised, however, in New Soutn Wales, first by Sir Joseph Carruthers, formerly Premier of that State, in a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, and now by the Sydney Morning Herald itself, which would seem to have been impressed with the views expressed by Sir Joseph respecting the report. One of our northern contemporaries has suggested that the report is one which should be matter for comment in New Zealand only, and for this reason has demurred to tne strictures by Sir Joseph Carruthers upon it. That is, however, a view of the matter with which it is impossible to agree. The administration of Western Samoa is not a matter that concerns New Zealand only. It is a matter in which the whole Empire and every mandatory Power are interested. Germany and the League of Nations, also, are necessarily interested. The report of the Royal Commission is consequently a document of international importance, and the conclusions that are expressed in it must be subject to critical examination in many quarters. The comments by Sir Joseph Carruthers and the Sydney Morning Herald upon it invite, however, the observation that they must be based on an imperfect acquaintance with the terms of the report. So voluminous and so exhaustive was the report that no newspaper in New Zealand was able, within the limits of Us space, to publish more than a selection of passages from it. The summary of it that was cabled to Australia can only have faintly indicated the comprehensiveness of it. Sir Joseph Carruthers has assumed that the order of reference prevented the Commission from conducting an investigation that would cover all the grounds of complaint against the Administration. The Sydney Mornino; Herald has accepted this assumption as sound. It suggests that “ the rather auremic character ” of the report may be ascribed to “ the rigid terms of reference.” The Prime Minister has already answered this suggestion. “The actual fact,” he has pointed

out, “is that the Commission was specifically instructed to inquire into every one of tho complaints that had been made either to the Minister of External Affairs in Samoa or in the petition presented to Parliament, and in addition was required to inquire whether in any other direction the Administration could have been held to have exceeded its duty or to have failed to exercise its respective functions honestly and justly.” The report shows, moreover, that the Commission did, in fact, make an investigation, as thorough as possible, of all the complaints that were levelled against the Administration.