SAMOAN UNREST.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, Issue 17693, 6 July 1927, Page 2

SAMOAN UNREST.

STATEMENT BY MR NOSWORTHY By Telegraph—Press Association. WELLINGTON, July 5. A lengthy statement was issued tonight by the Hon. W. Nosworthy, Minister of External Affairs, on the Samoan trouble. A deputation of the Citizens’ Committee and six native chiefs, says the Minister, requested him, when in Samoa, to see that both native and Europeans should be equally elected to the Legislative Council, and that the Council should have authority to deal with all the affairs of the territory, both European and native. The Committee criticised the allegedly extravagant financial administration of the territory, and also the cost of the medical administration, but the Committee’s main criticism was directed to the administration of native affairs, mainly on the ground that the faipules who advised the administration on native affairs were not appointed in accordance with Samoan usage and customs. To all these complaints the Minister replied that the deputation’s allegations did not have the authority of the majority of the people (both native and European), of the territory; and that the allegations had no foundation in fact. Reliable evidence was all the other way. Mr Nosworthy placed the position before the people in a lengthy speech in the plainest possible terms. The Samoans are so easily misled, he said, that he could go out to-morrow and get a thousand signatories to a petition on any subject under the sun, and he warned the Committee against persisting in its efforts to make the natives discontented with their rule.