The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, OCT. 21, 1919. THE SAMOAN MANDATE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11927, 21 October 1919, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, OCT. 21, 1919. THE SAMOAN MANDATE.

THE mandate given by the Peao e Conference to New Zealand in connection with Samoa ensures ns against the possibility of that important group being held bj- a foreign or alien Power. So long as Germany held a base there the control of the whole of the Pacific was in danger, and the possession of Samoa by any Eastern Power might i prove still more daug'erous. But a 1 guarantee of safety brings with it responsibilities, as well as creates a number of complications. In this case the Labour extremists have raised objections to indentured labour which tend to make it difficult for New Zealand to administer affairs to the best advantage. Extreme Labour has in this and some other countries arrogated to itself the right to declare that men whose skin is of different colour shall have no rights, and that this deprivation shall involve their exclusion from white communities. How far this view is justifiable it is not our purpose at present to discuss, further than to remark that if cheap and willing labour was available in any country there would be no , opportunity for the practice of the “goslow” policy. In regard to Samoa, however, it happens that it is a country in which the natives will not work, and the whites cannot without great injury to their physical condition. There are, however, races who are capable of working under the conditions that prevail, who have been so working, and who are very willing to continue so doing. The allegation that indentured labour is equal to slavery is not only utterly absurd, but is absolutely opposed to fact, for to 'the indentured labourer, employment means emancipation, and the eventual return to his own country in a very much better position than lie was when he jeft it. The indentured labourer is

not a slave who has been captured and compelled to work for his master; he is a volunteer who knows exactly what he will bo expected to do* and who is prepared to perform his share of the contract. The indentured labourer, like the Chinaman, seldom evinces any desire to settle permanently in any country; his chief object is to earn sufficient to constitute a competence when he returns to his native land. There are sound economic reasons why it is desirable to employ indentured labour in tropical countries, and against these the theoretical views of labour extremists should not be allowed to prevail. The latter are about as strong and as sensible as would be arguments against the use of labour -saving machinery. THE remark made by Or. Gower at the meeting of Kiwitea County Council “Our rates will soon be heavier than our rents’ ’ seems likely to prove prophetic. Several causes are operating towards this very undesirable end. One of these is the increase in the valuations of land on which the rating is based. We do not say the value sof land, because land is worth only what can be got from it by proper cultivation or use. Another cause is the great advance in the cost of labour and material required by local bodies. A partial remedy for this appears to lie in the suggestion to have most of the work done by contract. Another cause is that in a new country certain works are necessary for development, and though the present generation and posterity will benefit by the" expenditure of money on them, that money has to be raised on the security of special rates. Yet another cause arises from the fact that when the State threw a great portion of its responsibilities on the local bodies it created, it did not provide them with proper funds out of the general revenue. This last-named cause should receive more attention t than it has so far obtained. As things stand the rates are beginning to represent a very heavy special tax on land owners.

THE returned soldiers are justified in claiming that people of the nations against whom they were fighting fthall’not he allowed to hold land in New Zealand, unless they become British subjects, but it seems to us that they allowed feeling to obscure facts in their demand that “alien-enemy goods shall be excluded andshallnot be dumped inNew Zealand.” We remind them that trade always benefits both the seller and the buyer, or It would not be carried on, that restraint of it injures both nations adopting it, and that unless the other nations buy her wares Germany has no possible chance of paying the indemnities imposed on her. Moreover Germany cannot “dump” goods iu New Zealand, because she is lu the group of suppliers on whose goods a very heavy preferential duty has to be paid before they can be'offered iu our markers. The effect of that, continued over years, is most certainly very injurious to the trade of Germany.