NO IMPROVEMENT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17236, 16 April 1930, Page 5

NO IMPROVEMENT

CONDITIONS IN SAMOA WOMEN FORM MAU (Special to the Herald.) AUCKLAND, this day. *lll is not yet well iu_ Samoa, according to a correspondent who wrote on April 3. He says the decision to form a women’s Mau was made at Vaimoso on March 11. Later, the women’s il.au appeared in a uniform comprising a blue jumper blouse with a white band and blue lavalava. It is understood that the material was supplied free from interested sources, but nominally on an 8s “pay by-and-by” basis. On March 12 a small police party set out on a malaga round the island. It is understood that they were stoned in one Mau village. The tour took 12 days. They left tlio day after the Dunedin sailed. One of the items of the “coconut wireless” at the time was that the Administrator, all marines, all sailors, and most of the police were being taken back on the Dunedin to New Zealand, (where the Administrator was to he put in gaol. The marines left behind by tile Dunedin broke up a Mau folio at Lofoalii. The bringing of women into the trouble is a clever move, for their sex protects them, and also is impressive propaganda. What is the Administrator to do in the event of some hundreds of excited women becoming really aggressive ? At the present moment some 500 of the Mau are in custody, new gaols having been opened to accommodate, them. The other day prisoners at the old wireless station, obviously responding to outside influence, went on strike. Marines had to be sent to restore order. The general opinion in Apia is that the situation has not been improved in the slightest degree by the operations of H.M.S. Dunedin and the visit of the .Minister of Defence.