SUPPRESSION URGED!

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1074, 11 September 1930, Page 1

SUPPRESSION URGED!

“N.Z. SAMOA GUARDIAN” DISCUSSED MR. HARRIS’S SUGGESTION THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Wed. A suggestion that the “New Zealand Samoa Guardian” should be suppressed in the interests of order and good government in the Mandated Territory, was made in the House today, when Ministerial answers to members’ questions were being discussed. Tho Leader of the Labour Party, Mr. H. E. Holland, asked the Post-master-General, the Hon. J. B. Donald: i (.1) Whether he was aware that the j issues of the “New Zealand Samoa Guardian” of August T and 14, reI spectively, had been confiscated by I the Postal Department, and if so would lie inform the House why this action had been taken? (2) Whether he would give the House an assurance that tho suppression of newspapers opposed to coercion in Samoa was not to be made a feature of the Government’s policy. Mr. Donald replied: (1) I am aware that copies of tho “New Zealand Samoa Guardian” of August 7 and 14 were intercepted in the post and destroyed. The action was taken under the provisions of section 34 of the Post and Telegraph Act, 1928, because the newspapers contained matter of a libellous nature; (2) in taking the action that it did the Department was merely carrying out the law. Mr. A. Harris (Reform —-Wnltemata) complimented Mr. Donald on his answer, and said he believed (hat apart from the speeches of certain politicians the circulation of this paper among the Samoans was mostly responsible for aggravating the delicate situation in the Mandated Territory.! Mr. Harris suggested that Mr. Donald should go further and see it’ he could not suppress the publication altogether, as he believed it would, be in the interests of order and good government.