The Deported Planters.

Samoanische Zeitung, Volume 23, Issue 31, 3 August 1923, Page 2

The Deported Planters.

. (To the Editor Samoa Time*. Sir,—One of the greater blunders ever made, as far Us Samoa goes, was the whoU. sale deportation of the Ger. man planters en masse at a time when there was nobody available to take their place and assnme their respousibilities. At the time the deport. ations took place Civil Government had been well establi. - shed, T and it happened soVe weeks after the Peace Treaty had been signed and ratified. Some of those deported had been for nearly those years prisoners of war interned at Motuhi and Some's Islam], New Zealand, and .permitted to return to Samoa some time after the conclusion of the war, their wives and families keeping their plantations going during their'absence. Neither they nor the residents here thought for one instant (so long after the war), that the properties of individuals would be confiscated, and that they would be sent away. Some of them had been for many years in the tropics, and were hardened to tropical lift-; others were married to ladies of British nationality, bom in Samoa, who were deported w i t h their husbands, ladies who had never visited a cold country in their life, and who knew nothing about Germany. If it was decreed that they should be deported and their plantations confiscated as pint of the indemnity, they could slill have s been allowed to remain and carry on till such times as suitable people could be found to purchase the properties and assume their res-ponsibilitiest-4u the mean time giving the Government a long mortgage on the valuation of their estates, and at the sane time taking an oath that they would be loyal to the Samoa Administration. If this had been done many of the plantations would have been saved, and they would certainly not be in the deplorable state they are at present, as most oi those deported were ex pent need planters, well acclimatised, and not afraid of hard won;. All those-who had meaus at

home left Germany as soon as South American republics, Mexico, aua Java now have the advantage of'kheftiesperience and eutei'prise. who landed pennilessin Germany, a"j still there writing most pitm» in which they pray be allowed; to return uurtu any ,cpnjoitibn. " cannot hu the vacancies cause . y ,iL, deoijtf&ions* otherwise uw byßpfflyeemnent employee, .is ; tin^;thafcsomeofthesej^ are^ ! ,afraid of hard ork to rcuru, revenue b