MR. SMYTH AND SAMOA

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 137, 31 August 1927, Page 8

MR. SMYTH AND SAMOA

Sir. — When I interviewed you yesterday I handed you a statement for publication re Samoan affairs. I thought I made it clear then that this was the considered opinion of the Hon. Mr. Nelson and jnyself, as authorised delegates from the Citizens’ Committee of Western Samoa, now visiting New Zealand in support of ou.r petition to Parliament. Your leading article assumes that [ only landed from the Aorangi yesterday. and immediately rushed in to a r**Mitroversy where angels would tread

with diffidence. Actually I have been in New Zealand since July 19 when I was interviewed on arrival by your representative re Samoan affairs. It is to be hoped that the other assumptions of the writer are more accurate than his wrong guess about the date of my arrival here. Your writer is, of course, entitled to his views on the statement we gave you about the proposed Royal Commission. Without knowing its personnel or scope, we could offer no opinion, except to hope that it would not be a “whitewashing” tribunal, of which, we are informed, there have been many set up in New Zealand in the past. The reasons offered far setting up the inquiry are, however, fair subject for comment, and the Citizens’ Committee, while warmly welcoming this tardy reply to our request for such a tribunal, does not like the setting up of the commission being made in response to a request from the Administrator alleging “unwarranted untruths and sensational statements in the press.”

This obviously implies that we, in Samoa and here, have been engaged in a campaign of lies and calumny against the Administrator, and we resent that aspect of the Government’s action. For a year now the people of New Zealand have been assured that all was well in Samoa, and there was nothing to inquire into. Now the Government performs a volte face and grants us a Royal Commission of Inquiry just as we have completed our case before the joint committee sitting behind closed doors in Wellington, and considering our petition to Parliament. Why? A. G. SMYTH.