QUIET YEAR IN SAMOA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19700, 4 August 1938, Page 7

QUIET YEAR IN SAMOA

ANTI-MAU FACTION SOUNDNESS OF FINANCES COOK ISLANDS’ SURPLUS (Per Presa Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. “The year has been quiet,” states the report on Western Samoa, prepared for the League of Nations and presented to the House of Representatives. Reference is made to the organisation of a small Samoan anti-Mau minority, mainly in Vaimauga East. In this sub-district the majority of the people have never belonged .to the Mau, and when the fono was reelected in September, 1936, the new faipule were firmly insistent upon the recasting of the faipule districts, which allotted one faipule for all Vaimauga district where, hitherto, there had been two. .In a letter to the acting-Aministra-■tor iri: January, 1938, the organisation declared: “Everything that New Zealand has done for Samoa is good and right, but the villages concerned feel they have been somewhat eclipsed by the Mau majority." The acting-Administrator endeavoured to arrange a meeting between the representatives of the faipule and of the new movement to compose their differences, but the faipule considered that no good could come of such a meeting and the movement is likely to continue. It illustrates the normal differences in viewpoint, states the report, more particularly on the question of the allocation of those Government offices which are elective, and has been rather over-publicised as, up to the present, the new movement does not represent more than 3j per cent of the Samoan population. Best For Many Years Samoan finance last year was the best for many years, the surplus of £3BO being disclosed after the payment of £5500 in the direct redemption of debt, and the setting aside of £SOOO for the replacement of Vaisigano bridge and £BSOO for the 1938-39 building programme. The accumulated surplus is £24,561, to which must be added reserves for the replacement of assets, and for building purposes, totalling £25,500, which has been provided out of revenue. The Cook Islands administration also discloses a surplus on the year’s accounts, the Resident Commissioner stating that the income amounted to £56,598 and the expenditure to £47,207, showing a surplus of £9391. Subsidies from the New Zealand Treasury, on account of medical, hospital and educational services amounted to £II,OOO, this amount being included in the figures. The assets, totalling £ 121,841, include £30,000 made available by a loan from the New Zealand Treasury as working capital for the handling and exporting of oranges and bananas under the Government control of fruit. The control operations resulted in a surplus of £461.