SAMOA.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19062, 26 July 1927, Page 11

SAMOA.

TO THE EDITOR Or THE PBESB. Sir, —I was very glad to read in The Press this morning the very sound advico you gave to the Government about its policy in Samoa. The very best that can be said about it all is that the Government is doing the right thing In the wrong way. It is not oven established to the satisfaction of most of the people in .New Zealand who are fit to have an opinion on the subject that the Government is doing, or attempting to do, the right thing. No one would suggest that the Administrator should surrender his authority to this precious committee, which, according to Mr Nosworthy, has for one of its members a convicted thief and a bootlegger. It may bo true—probably it is true—that the influence of the committee is mischievous, but that would not be a ground, except in a case of extreme emergency, for deporting Hs members without trial. Does the Government fear an armed rising by the natives? If this is the "explosion" at which Mr Nosworthy hinted in his speech on Saturday morning, the emergency may be extreme enough to warrant the sternest measures the Government could take. But it has not been alleged that one of the crimes of which these mischievous people have been guiltv has been the inciting of the natives to armed revolt. All thatthe people of New Zealand have been told is. as you point out, that they have told the natives not to kill beetles and not to clean up their villages. There have been hints that Mr Nelson is challenging the authority of the Administrator in some vague way. Probably all that means is that he has dared on occasion to disagree with the Administrator and his policy. And for this he is to be deported on the edict of the Administrator—for there is no doubt at all that in its present temper the Government would endorse without question the Administrators advice to bundle him out. If h©,_ or any of his associates, have been guilty of conduct deserving of such extreme punishment, r.he nature of his offences should be told explicitly to the New Zealand, people and the New Zealand Parliament. And before the punishment is .inflicted the offences should be proved before some suitable tribunal. If no such tribunal exists at present, it is the duty of the Government to constitute one at the same time as *t names the penalty which, may be imposed on proof of guilt. It is monstrous that any man should run the risk of deportation, and incidentally of financial ruin, without being given a chance to say a word in his own defence. Much nonsense was talked in the debate on the second reading of the Bui on the side issue of deportation as a punishment. In every organised community the Government has power-to deal with persons within its borders much more severely than even this Bill contemplates. A man may be imprisoned, even for the remainder or his life, or may be put to death. But in every country that is not barbarous this right of the Government to deal with the person of an offender is re gulated by statute, which defines the offence exactly, and prescribes, exactly the right of the subject to defend himself, and the duty of the Crown to prove the person guilty. Mr Coates proposes that the subject shall have none of these rights, and that the Crown shall have no such awkward burden. It is; not the penalty of-de-portation that is wrong, but the conditions under which this penalty is to be enforced. One other point. Many must have read with dismay the letter written a' few days ago by Mr Nosworthy. to the principal of a college, who, after a visit to Samoa of some weeks, ventured to express some opinions about the estate of things there." The' letter was in execrably bad taste, and it showed |ts author wasMin-- just? the'.state of nervous .irritation that the visitor to Samoa had in the.first place set .down as the cause of most of the trouble between the Administration and a considerable section of the people of Samba. The letter may have been written for Mr Nosworthv's signature; if so, Mr Nosworthy needs a new letter writer. Indeed, he needs the letter writer in anv case, because if he I wrote that letter himself, he should certainly not'trust himself to write anI other. —Yours, etc.. ! • ON-LOOKER.