Citizens Say—

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 547, 27 December 1928, Page 8

Citizens Say —

(To the Editor.)

MR. FIELD’S THEORIES Sir, In reference to the correspondence in your paper under the heading of “In the Beginning.” I have heard Mr. Field lecture on this subject, and feel 'satisfied that he has found new fundamental knowledge which is sound. At the same time, I and many others would like to hear Mr. Field’s theories criticised by someone competent to do so. Realising that the subject is too j vast a one to be dea.lt with by newspaper correspondence, I venture to suggest that Mr. Field and “A.E.C.” come to some arrangement whereby Mr. Field would deliver a public lecture one week, and the following week “A.E.C.” would take the platform and voice his criticism of the same. C.W.H.P, Hemuera. HIGH RENTS Sir, — I am disappointed* in your Auckland. I came North recently buoyed with hope of a well-organised and reason-ably-priced community, and pictured this reputed paradise as a place where the modest wage-earner might live in comparative security from the more evil of economic inequalities. My first disillusionment has reached me through my search for a house. Because the new Government has not yet released its flood of advances to workers—that flood which is going to solve the housing problem for us all, I feel sure—l cannot purchase my own home. My endeavours to rent a reasonably comfortable place at a modest figure have been in vain, however, and I now find that most of my weekly earnings will be eaten up in payments for a place lowers my standard of comfort, and increases the hardship of making both ends meet in the home. It is said that rents in Auckland are falling. I can only utter a word of fervent gratification that I did not live here when they were high. I find that places with no pretentions whatever toward beauty and comfort are commanding figures well over the level of £ 2 and £ 2 ss. As a test last week I rang tap a woman who advertised a furnished house to let to an approved tenant. Oh, yes; she would let the place to an approved tenant—at eight guineas a week! After being carried from the telephone, I rang the nearest agent, and secured an option upon a two-roomed flat. Here I am. But, sir, I am disappointed in your Auckland. HOUSE-HUNTER. THE SHAME OF SAMOA Sir.— May I through your columns/seek space for a few remarks on the Samoan problem? 1 went on board

tlxe Tofua yesterday and was told that Tamasese, the leader of the Mau movement, was held close prisoner in the custody of Mi-. Berendsen, Secretary of External Affairs, who had taken charge of the offender in Samoa and now handed him over to the police here to be locked in the “Black Maria” waiting on the wharf to convey Tamasese to Mount Eden Gaol. The permanent head of the department then brushed his hands as though glad to be rid of a degrading job. To unenlightened onlookers Tamasese was merely a common criminal who had been sent to gaol for "resisting” a fully-armed force of forty-odd military police when arrested for the crime of refusing to pay into our Samoan Treasury the sum of £2 due as a poll tax. The judge of the Court who sentenced Tamasese was also a passenger, the same judge who was fiued by his Junior colleague after pleading guilty to an assault on two Mau chiefs, a far more menacing and provocative offence than that of Tamasese. The whole of these stupid proceedings against the Mau leader may become gravely serious when we realise that in his veins runs the royal blood of Samoa, which, is respected and venerated by his people. When Tamasese walked to the prison van he appeared every inch a prince, and was greeted as one by those who knew him. He wore his Mau uniform with dignity and pride. Tamasese’s offence is % merely his firm but emphatic refusal to pay for a Government squatting in Samoa with no other right than a military occupation which ousted the German guardians of the and a memo sealed and sigri/id at \ ersailles by almost every nation except the one most concerned —the Samoan. The merest skimming or the history of the Pacific reveals Samoa as its coeknit for 60 years past. iYL cont ‘ n “ 6 to it a place of stri.e and hatred with our appalling policy of the Big Stick, gunboats and machine-guns, banishments and deportations.

The new Government may plead it has just reached office and knows n oSjVJf £ bout the real situation : but ihe T-iln General Richardson, tne lion. Mi. Nelson, Mr. E. W Gurr Judgee Woodward, i n Auckland and Beiendsen straight here from tion- wfn^eVa^, Continuing this Tehee-; Justified in U o on’- C 1f O S?°T n fo ° f to apologise' publicly°?or my early"!* sociation with the t ihe , y varly asrederatlon in WISES* Devonport. PERCY ANDREW. notice TO CORRESPONDENT I to - m U iss u? —Ed W ‘fhe S lm% ln