SESSIONAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12090, 26 June 1920, Page 5

SESSIONAL NOTES.

Per Press Assotlcitaon

Several matters concerning' Samoa were toucher! upon by Archbishop O’Shea, of Wellington, in an interview given to an Auckland “Star representative. Archbishop O’Shea has just returned from a four weeks’ visit to the Islands, where ho has consecrated the new Roman Catholic Bishop of Samoa. The Archbishop said he was very sorry to state that there was a great deal of dissa.l islaction amongst both whites and Natives with regard to New Zealand a administration. This war probably due to the long period of military rule, for it must ho remembered that civil Government has Just. come into force. Mistakes, no doubt, had been made in administration, and there was also a likelihood that, these had been exaggerated by residents. The climate also was of a nature likely to make people querulous and impatient. The task of administration under the new order of things was not to be envied, and be felt considerable sympathy with the Administrator at the present Juncture. i Continuing, Archbishop O Shea sam he thought that the recent visit of New Zealand legislators did not create a favourable impression amongst the majority of the white or brown people, as was expected. Many expressed the desire to bo governed rather ns a Crown colony from London. whence experienced officials, who understood Island problems, would be sent to Pam on,. Be also imagined tbnt the Samoans themselves were partial to the United States. The manner in which that countrv dealt with the recent influenza epidemic influence them much in this respect. . “It semns certain, said Ur O Shea, “that Samoan labour is not sufficient to keep the plantations going, yet T understand that the greater part of the copra output is produced by the Natives themselves; and, as I have said, the labour difficulty will gradually right, itself under a system of good government.” Repatriation of the Germans was also causing a lot of feeling. A wholesale deportation was being carried on. Many of the people being deported had lived for thirty years in the place, and other of them, especially the women folk, after all these years in the tropics, could not again stand the German winter, and yet it seems that they are being sent back to Germany on tbe eve of winter. Moreover the treatment of the British and Urench residents during the period between the declaration of war and the occupation had been maked by extreme kindness and consideration on the part of the German authorities. It would be difficult, continued the Archbishop, to replace the German settlers by white men of the same stamp and measure. If any of the Germans were found guilty of am d isl oval tv to the Government they should, by all means, be punished, but that was no reason to punish the innocent along with the guilty.