Criticism in London "Trath.

Samoanische Zeitung, Volume 23, Issue 31, 3 August 1923, Page 6

Criticism in London "Trath.

• ■ * ("Otago Times.") In London Truth' of May 23 appears a letter from a Satnoan resident violently attacking the administration of Samoa by the New Zealand officials. The principal charge is that the country is not prosperous because of "the swarm of official locusts, whose maintenance requires increased taxation at a time of trade depression." There are also personal attacks on individual officials. The writer avers that Samoa was regarded as the best-governed and most prosperous of the German colonies; that the plantations under German control had been well managed, but as Crown estates the reverse was the case. Further, that the cost of living is double that of Fiji. These sweeping charges are a re-echo of much in the same strain that has been circulated through the press of Australia and New Zealand by two or three disgruntled European residents in Samoa. The writer's statements, however, are not borne out by official statistics. In 1914, the last year under German administration, the exports of copra from Samoa was 8573 tons, and in 1915 11,974 tons. In 1922 the export of copra was 16,965 tons. There has been a decline in the exports of cocoa, from 1033 tons in 1914 and 879 tons in 1915, to 765 tons in 1922. The total value of the imports in 1914 was and the value of exports /220,519, making the total trade In 1922 the imports were valued at and the exports 610, giving a combined total of The import duties collected iu 1915 amounted to and in 1922 to In view of the increased trade there is no evidence of the crushing taxation of which the writer in Truth complains. Among measures brought into operation for improving the welfare of the natives are uniform marriage laws on Europeans and natives, total prohibition of the sale pi liquor, equal incidence of the criminal law, the establishment of district schools, the introduction of competent citizens to teach trades, and the training of nurses and medical students. If the correspondent of Truth had given publicity to these facts he might have rendered some service to Samoa, instead of doing it the ill-turn which his extravagant attacks on the * administration may do in the minds of unthinking British people. _