FUTURE OF SAMOA

Wairarapa Daily Times, 8 June 1936, Page 5

FUTURE OF SAMOA

REVERSION TO GERMANY. CONSIDERED LIKELY. AUCKLAND, This Day. The opinion that New Zealand may some day be asked to hand back Samoa to Germany was; expressed by Major C. V. Joske, a Suva business man, who is a through passenger from Sydney by the Aorangi. In Fiji there was concern, Major Joske said, at “the somewhat equivocal statement of the British Prime Minister that the British Government could not, at this stage, commit itself upon the question of the mandated territories to Germany, and that action would be governed largely by the protection of the natives involved.” “We cannot help feeling,” he added, “that the day is not far distant when New Zealand may be asked to assist in furthering the Imperial policy by handing back Samoa to Germany. In any case, the position- of Samoa seems Jo have been an embarrassment rather than an advantage, and Fiji cannot help regarding somewhat ruefully the increasing imports of bananas from Samoa to New Zeaiand, which, threaten to cut in half the banana export to the Dominion from Fiji.”—(P.A.) ..