SAMOA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20315, 25 January 1928, Page 7

SAMOA

PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT. MR H. E. HOLLAND’S REPLY. LAW IGNORED BY ADMINISTRATION. PROMISES DISHONOURED AND NATIVES DEGRADED. “ BIG STICK ” POLICY A FAILURE (Per United Press Association.) Mr H. E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, to-day issued the following reply to the Prime Minister’s statement in relation to the position in Samoa:—

“ While Mr Coates’s statement is extremely unconvincing as an attempt to justify his Government’s line of action in Samoa, it is supremely interesting, inasmuch as it constitutes a sweeping refutation of some of the most important reports which have come from the Administration in recent months. Hitherto in his reports to the New Zealand Government, General Richardson has asked the people of the Dominion to believe that there was no dissatisfaction in Western Samoa with his administration. W T e were told the disaffection was on the part of only a few Europeans and a small number of natives. Now, the Prime Minister’s official statement is correct, the situation in Samoa is much as it was in Ireland between the Easter week insurrection in 1916 and the Constitution of the Free State. “ ‘ The King’s writ is not running,’ Mr Coates says. ‘ The Samoans -re refusing to recognise the rule of the Administration. . They won't pay the fines inflicted upon them by the court, as in Robert Louis Stevenson’s day, when the Tripartite Government operated and Baron Von Pilsarch was president of the Municipal Council. They are refusing to pay their taxes, and in other ways 1 they are demonstrating their resentment against the treatment which the'Administration is meting out to them. Mr Coates concludes his statement with a threat that ‘ a stronger course ’ is to be taken in Samoa, and says that the interests of a large number of natives are to be preferred to the interests of a handful of Europeans,’ but he fails to explain why, if this is so, practically all of the Samoans are in revolt against his policy. Nor does he explain why a multitude of punishments is imposed, in the case of the Samoans, for offences for which he claims Europeans are responsible. „ “In this matter Mr Coates contradicts himself, for, having put the blame on the Europeans, he also says ‘There can be no possible doubt the present unfortunate state of affairs is due to the activities of the Man.’ He cannot have it both ways. The Man is a great organisation of Samoan people, and it exists despite every attempt to break it. The natives have been forbidden to contribute to its funds or join its membership. The Chief Judge has torn its membership badges from the coats of chiefs. Recently certain Europeans have been ordered, under apparent threat of deportation, to bring about its dispersion—an utterly impossible task for any European—'but my information is that, despite these things, the Man is stronger than ever. The Government’s deportaj tion orders, and its disregard for every fundamental principle of Magna Charta, have stiffened up the Samoan organisation and strengthened the natives in their opposition to the New Zealand Administration, adding yet another contradiction to the Contradictory mass which his statement represents. “Mr Coates makes the frankest r,i frank confessions. He now says that the three citizens who have been deported have been guilty of neither crime nor offence, and that their deportation must be regarded, not as a penalty—not even as a judicial act—but as a preventive measure to facilitate the good government of the territory. I can imagine the amazement with which this pronouncement will be read by the world outside, and no doubt the said world will await Mr Coates’s next move, which possibly may take the form of deporting without trial his political opponents in the Dominion to facilitate good government. , . , “ Mr Coates wholly evades reference to the real reasons why the Samoans are m revolt against the New Zealand administration. He must know that the dissatisfaction with the manner of appointment and the functions of the Fono and Faipules is one reason, and that another is the flagrant dishonouring of promises made by the New Zealand Government, including Sir James Parr’s promise that the Samoans would be given representation in the Legislative Council. Not the work done by agitators, either European or Samoan, but our own maladministration, is the cause of the grave unrest which exists to-day. PUNISHMENT OF SAMOANS. “ Mr Coates makes no reference to tie numerous punishments inflicted <n Samoans during the past several years without any form of trial in a court of justice. Chiefs have been banished from island to island, and from village to village. Every such banishment is essentially an internment, for if a chief goes beyond the confines of the village named in his banishment order he is guilty of an offence, and is liable to be heavily sentenced. In a number of cases, deprivation of the chiefly title has accompanied the banishment order, and since this means degradation, both for the chief and his family, the infliction of these punishments gravely offends the proud and dignified Samoan people. “ Another cause of hostility to New Zealand that Mr Coates does not mention is the fact bitterly commented upon by his own colleague, Sir Maui Pomare, that it is due to the criminal neglect of the Dominion authorities that the pneumonic influenza was taken to Western Samoa in 1918, resulting in more than a quarter of the population being wiped out. Only the most disinterested administration of Samoa by us will ever induce he Samoans to forget that-tragedy. “ When flie Joint Samoan Committee was sitting the chairman (Sn James Allen), with the committee’s authority, sent a radiograph to Samoa definitely promising that when the committee’s report was ready for presentation to Parliament the evidence would be printed and tabled along with the report. That promise was dishonoured as readily as it was made, and that it was dishonoured is one of the facts that rankles in the Samoan mind.

“ If, as Mr Coates says, the court in Samoa is being treated with contempt, Is not the Government itself responsible? After the chief judge had been charged with insulting behaviour, calculated to cause a breach of the peace, and after he had been found guilty and fined for th®

offence, he was permitted to retain hi* position, and continue in the work of heavily penalising Samoans for much lighter offences. When, without rebuke, the Administrator is permitted to make adverse comments on court decisions that displease him, and to jubilate concerning decisions that please him, is it any wonder the natives also lightly view the court and its verdicts? Moreover, when such shocking scandals as the Foster case and another are carefully hushed up, so far as New Zealand is concerned, are we expect the Samoans, who know the fac.s, to seriously respect our administration of the law? Although it has been stated repeatedly that certain Europeans —six in particular—have been guilty of various acts, on no single occasion has a definite charge been laid, or a case been proved in the court against any of the Europeans referred to.

RIGHT OF FAIR TRIAL

“ Mr Coates says be has ‘ found it ham to understand the solicitude that has been shown for Mr Nelson and his colleagues by the Leader of the Labour Party, and by a section of our own press and the public. If that is so. Mr Coates does net anoerstaud the elementary principles of justice in civilised countries, which provide that men accused of offences against the la .v shall be given a fair trial. If Mr Coates were being threatened with deportation from his native land without having oeen charged with an offence, and without any form of trial, I should show the-same solicitude in his case as I have shown in Mr Nelson’s. I should insist that n« be accorded the same right of trial that would be given in the case of any other accused. It cannot be argued that there is not sufficient power under the law to reach offenders. The enactments of the Germans in their essentials were repeated by us, and our additional ordinances provide most severe penalties for persons who break the law in Samoa. The fact thas no charge has been laid against Europeans must he taken as a proof that there has never been evidence to warrant a prosecution, and now, for no proved offence whatever, as Mr Coates confessed, men who are .native-born or permanently resident are being deported from Samoa. The only offence suggested that they have been guilty of is that of constitutional opposition to the Administration. In the last Legislative Council election notwithstanding the restricted franchise which leaves 75 per cent, of the Europeans without votes, and also, notwithstanding the vigorous official canvassing, the Govern ment’s opponents defeated, by more than two to one, the candidates who supported the policy of the Administration. In an election with all the adult Europeans voting, no European standing in support of the Government should hope to poll 20 per cent, of the European votes, and no Samoan supporter of the Government would poll that percentage of Samoan votes, assuming that the Samoans had the right to vote, aul yet the definite attitude of the Government is that whoever offers constitutional opposition to the Administration is to be threatened with a deportation sentence. It is hardly a commendable way of getting rid of opponents who win out at polls. “ I have noted with much interest that Mr Coates avoids all reference to the illegal promulgation of the 1927 Ordinance amending the Samoa Immigration Consolidation Order, and the illegal threats of deportation which were made by the Minister of External Affairs and the Administrator immediatelv that unconstitutional Order-in-Council was gazetted. That adventure into illegality was responsible for as much unrest in Samoa as any other single act of the present or any other preceding Administration.” “ Mr Coates declares that the two chief causes of white discontent in Samoa are the prohibition of liquor and the Administrator’s experiment in the handling of the sale of native copra. Of course, the Prime Minister knows that the Opposition has frequently made it clear that it would stand against the introduction of liquor into the Islands, but he covers up the fact that intoxicating liquor is being freely manufactured in Western Samoa, both by natives and Europeans, and I have no doubt he knows it was given in evidence before the Joint Samoa Committee that officials of his Administration are among the chief offenders. As to the experimental policy of the Administration in selling native copra, it would be information if the Prime Mnister would furnish to the public the figures showing the quantities of native copra sold and the prices obtained. I know that good prices have been obtained, but I understand that the quantity of native copra handled is comparatively small. I am quite prepared to believe that private capitalism operating in Samoa would not be very different from private capitalism operating in New Zealand, but if there is a danger of the natives being exploited in this connection an easy way out of the difficulty would be by the Administration nationalising the sale of copra. When I suggested this to Mr Coates in the House he appeared to think such a course would constitute a serious interference with private enter-

prise. “ Mr Coates makes somewhat extensive reference to the report of the recent the commission's report and evidence, notthis he has me at a disadvantage, for up to the present he has withheld from myself and all other members of Parliament the commissions report and evidence, notwithstanding his promise that it would be made available to us. His explanation of why he has taken this extraordinary course is heavily overdue. It is my opinion—and in forming it I am fortified by disclosures made by the Prime Minister of the magnitude of the Samoan revoltr—that the ” big stick ” policy of the New Zealand Government in Samoa has utterly failed, that the recall of General Richardson is an immediate necessity, and that, if the situation is to be retrieved, and the historic rights of the Samoans conserved, the League of Nations must awaken to a sense of its responsibility, and take prompt action. To ms it seems deplorable that, because of the failure of those in authority to understand the psychology of the natives, and their refusal to apply the ordinary principles of British justice in Samoa, the main outcome of New Zealand's rule should he a situation big with possibilities of disaster, ana that our authorities should only be capable of meeting such a situation with a threat of additional administrative violence and injustice.”

MR NELSON RETICENT.

WILL CONSULT COUNSEL. (Phb United Prsos Association.) AUCKLAND, January 24. For the reason that he is not prepared to make a full statement until he has consulted his legal advise! 1 , the Hon. 0. F. Nelson, who arrived by the Tofua yesterday. stated to-day that he was not ready to reply to the reasons given by the Prime Minister in Wellington for the deportation of himself and two other Samoan-Europeans from the mandated territory. “ In respect of the deportation orders and the supposed trial before the Administration,” said Mr Nelson, “ I have the records of all the proceedings with me, and, as counsel advises, these will be made available for publication. I shall be leaving Auckland on Monday for Wellington. Mr Smyth will accompany me to consult Sir John Findlay and further developments will depend upon our consultation with him,”