Samoan Discontent

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 260, 24 January 1928, Page 8

Samoan Discontent

“WE INTEND TO GOVERN” Prime Minister Speaks Press Association. WELLINGTON, To-day. “IT is impossible to ignore the serioufi position that exists 1 in Samoa to-day, and has existed there for some months past, and. it is not too mueli to say that sufficient mischief has already been done to prejudice the prosperity of bamoa and the Samoans for many years to come.’ This statement embraces the sentiments of the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, who has expressed the determination of the Government to enforce the letter of the administration in the mandated territory, and who explains the reasons for the deportation from the islands last week. “It is our duty to govern Samoa, and from this point we intend to govern Samoa,” he says.

MR. COATES unhesitatingly blames the operations of the Mau for the trouble in Samoa, and asserts that as a result of this institution’s activities, the Samoan treasury has been supplemented by an extra £30,000, which is the anticipated deficit directly due to the Mau. The decline in export and import trade, too, must suffer, he says, on account of the disruption among the people, and this will cause greater loss.

Throughout the statement issued by the Prime Minister may be discerned some of the anxiety which has been felt by the Government for the safety of the administration, as well as an idea of the precarious nature of the situation which must have existed during the height of the discontent.

“It is not generally recognised in New Zealand,” Mr. Coates said, “that our administration of Samoa has for many months past been very largely ineffective. In Samoa to-day the native people are seriously dis-united. A. large section of them are in a state of passive resistance to constituted authority. . So far as they are concerned the King’s writ is not running. They are refusing to obey the orders and summonses of the Court, even though serious indictable and criminal offences are involved; they are refusing to pay their taxes; they are failing to search for beetles, or to account for those collected; they are neglecting their plantations; they are keeping their children from the Government schools; and, perhaps the most serious of all, they are rejecting medical help and neglecting sanitary precautions. The effect of the Mau activities upon the health administration was described bjv the Prime Minister as “most marked and most deplorable,” and the advice of the chief medical adviser, Dr. Hunt, was quoted to show that the infant mortality rate had been practically halved in three years, but the present unrest had resulted in the disbanding of many of the committees, thus creating the possibility of an increase. Native mothers were not bringing their babies to the welfare officer, while sanitary conditions had

been so neglected that an outbreak o; disease was expected at any time. "With a due sense of responsibility,” Mr. Coates went on, “I say that, as a direct result of the Mau influence, which has seriously destroyed the confidence of the natives in our health administration, many innocent lives must be lost in Samoa.”

A comparison was made between conditions existing before the institution of the Mau and the present state of affairs, the Prime Minister contrasting the previous happy lot of the native to his present discontent and dissatisfaction. The report of the Commission he considered to be a complete vindication of the Administration, which he said had evoked admiration throughout the world.

‘‘European discontent, -with our policy of prohibiting liquor, was the root cause of the agitation and native unrest in 1920, 1921, 1922, and to a certain extent of the more recent disorders,” Mr. Coates went on, “but undoubtedly the menace to the business and wealth of the traders, of whom Mr. Nelson is the largest and most influential, of the administration's experimental native copra selling policy, was largely responsible for the present movement. The fact that this white discontent, due to policies entirely in the interest and for the benefit of the indigenous people of the mandated territory, nevertheless manifested itself in most serious native intrigues and resistance to the administration, throws a significent sidelight on the peculiar psychology of the Samoan race. “It is our duty to govern Samoa, and from this point onward we intend to govern Samoa. We had, ample power if we chose to enforce the law in the same manner as the law would be enforced in New Zealand—by force. Fortunately, we had another alternative —to remove what was ii our opinion the source and origin of the trouble in the confidence that left to themselves the Samoans would gradually of their own accord realise the position and cooperate with the administration as in the past. "It cannot be made too clear that the deportation ordered is not in any way a punishment for a crime or an offence. It is not in the strict sense of the ter ma judicial act —it is an executive act taken not as a penalty, but as a preventive measure to facilitate the good government of thd territory. "To sum the matter up, we had three possible sources of action—first, to allow the Administration of Samos, to remain ineffective, which was, of course, unthinkable; secondly, to inflict grave hardship on large number*! of probably Innocent natives by th€! application of force; or, thirdly, by remoying those who were, in our opinion, primarily responsible, to prevent; any extension of the mischief and so enable the Administration to put in hand those conciliatory methods which we believe will ultimately prove successful. This was the course we adopted, and we already have good reason to believe that the object we all desire will be achieved peacefully and gradually in this way. "... We have felt it advisable to prefer the interests of the large number of natives to the interests of a handful of Europeans, and we are satisfied that the course we have adopted was correct and that it will be justified by the event.”