SAMOAN ADMINISTRATION

Taranaki Daily News, 17 October 1927, Page 9

SAMOAN ADMINISTRATION

UNREST OF RECENT ORIGIN WHITE AND BLACK MAN’S WISDOM EVIDENCE TAKEN FOR CROWN. {Special to Pres® Assn. —By Radio.) Received Oct. 16, 5.5 p.m. Apia, Oct. 15. To Elupe, a Faipule under seven Governments of Samoa, including that f New Zealand, testified before the Royal Commission to-day that there was no unrest in Samoa until October last, when it was caused by the Mau. Banishments were customary in old Samoa for comparatively trivial and also for serious offences. He considered no Samoan was clever enough to be in the white’s man’s legislative council. Samoan wisdom was not the white’s wisdom, which was the reason all Samoan efforts to organise and mt .age trading companies invariably failed. Th. present Fono system was the only practicable way for the present generation in Samoa. Apia, Oct. 14. Representative witnesses on behalf of the administration officials testified that members of the Mau would not carry out the orders of officials. Matafa, a Faipule, deposed that he did not favour Samoans having a Legislative Council, which was a white man’s body. The Samoans’ body was a Fono of Faipules. Mr. Lewis, secretary of Native Affairs, said the system of Faipule Government was in vogue in Samoa before the German occupation in 1900. Under Germany the appointments were made solely by the Governor. Banishment was a very old Samoan custom, and under the kingship of Malietoa, the law of 1892 vested the power of banishment absolutely in the King.