WESTERN SAMOA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20320, 31 January 1928, Page 10

WESTERN SAMOA

GOVERNMENT’S POLICY CONDEMNED. MR HOLLAND RETURNS TO THE ATTACK. (Per United Press Assocut.on.) WESTPORT, January 30. Mr H. E. Holland (leader of the Opposition), referring to Mr J. G.. Coates’s last statement, said he took the tioti'est exception to the Prime Minister’s characterisation of his public utterances on Samoa as inflammatory statements. He was convinced that the majority of the public disapproved of the injustice which was being applied to Samoa, and he would be failing in his duty as Leader of the Opposition if he disregarded public opinion on so important a subject, or neglected to raise a warning voice against a policy which so clearly was leading towards disaster. When the Government’s policy was challenged the Minister, having no effective reply to the Opposition’s charge, fell back on an ancient Conservative tactic, and described the attitude of his opponents as inflammatory. It was only a short step to the next inevitable charge that those who did not agree with the Government’s policy were guilty of disloyalty. Each succeeding phase of New Zealand’s administration in Samoa seemed marked with an increasing accumulation of folly, for it should be apparent to everyone that the Samoans could not be bludgeoned into servility. Mr Coates’s latest move of sending an expeditionary force of six, constables, heralded with a flourish of trumpets and a proclamation as to their respective sizes, which, if it did nit ret the Samoans rocking with laughter, might be accepted by them for another ‘‘ big stick ” threat. It w r as as if Mr Coates having discovered the house on fire, set out to extinguish the flames by pouring petrol upon them. Referring to the Royal Commission’s report, .Mr Holland said that surely if the printed form of the report could be furnished to the press nearly two months ago, there was no. reason why it should not have been furnished to members of Parliament at the time. There was certainly something to ,be said for the delay in printing the evidence, but even that should have been ready in less than two months’ time. He ; was still waiting to hear the explanation of Mr Coates and the administration in connection with the Foster case.