SAMOA

Southland Times, Issue 20396, 27 January 1928, Page 8

SAMOA

NATIVE UNBEST PRIME MINISTER REPLIES TO MR HOLLAND EXTENSION OF MAU ACTIVITIES (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, January 26. Replying to Mr Holland, Mr Coates states that certain reasons are alleged for dissatisfaction in Samoa with the New Zealand authorities and asks: “If they explain the unrest in Western Samoa how is it the Mau has extended its activities to American Samoa where these reasons cannot hold good?” Mr Coates quotes extensively from an American official organ to show that the Mau is interfering in American territory and refusing to pay taxes and the reply of Captain Graham, the Governor, was that the Government would be administered according to established laws. BONE OF CONTENTION. ROYAL COMMISSION’S REPORT. MR HOLLAND’S ARGUMENT. Westport, January 26. Mr Holland said Mr Coates’s latest remarks sent out by the Press constituted no reply to his questions. Mr Coates had offered no explanation why he would not let rhe members of Parliament have the Royal Commission’s reports and the accompanying evidence and he did not attempt to explain the glaring contradictions to which he had drawn attention. If Mr Coates’s latest assertion was correct and if the Mau was really responsible for the trouble in Samoa where was his justification for punishing by deportation without trial Europeans whom, he declared guilty of no offence whatever? Mr Coates and his Government would not be permitted to shelter behind what was happening in Eastern Samoa under American rule. If his statement of the trouble at Tutuila was correct it might prove one of two things either that the Samoans in the Eastern group felt that they also had a cause to be dissatisfied witlh the way in which their islands were being governed or the psychological influence of the unrest in Western Samoa had extended to the east. A student of native psychology would expect this latter to happen. In any case the island had no legislative or administrative responsibility in the matter of Eastern Samoa, but had a duty to see that its administration of Western Samoa was not weighted down with indefensible acts of tyranny. A later message stated that the report attributing to Mr Coates the reply to Mr Holland was a mistake. It did not emanate from the Prime Minister, but was merely an article from a paper.