Reform In Western Samoa Urged In Debate At U.N.

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27396, 8 July 1954, Page 11

Reform In Western Samoa Urged In Debate At U.N.

(Rec. 8 P.m.) new YORK. July 6 1 Reforms in the administration of the I Trust Territory of Western Samoa were urged by delegates from Syria, India, and the Soviet Union today, when the United. Nations Trusteeship Council resumed its general debate on conditions in the New Zealandadministered territory. . Mr Salah Eddine Taraza, the Syrian delegate, said that development towards self-government for the inhabitants of Western Samoa seemed hampered by Samoan customs and ways of

society, he said, had reached a relatively high level of developm While changes should not be forced upon the people, he believed certain reforms were necessary, and the administering authority should, through education, impress upon the Samoans the need for the changes. Mr Taraza said that the system of suffrage should be further widened. More power should be given to he T eeislative Assembly, and a complete system of tribunals should be established? in which the indigenous courts would be given recognition. . He urged the establishment of a fiscal system, with fuller protection for the Samoans and revision of the present'preferential tariff. He suggested the widening of the scope of education to help Samoan society make greater and faster progress. Mr V K. Krishna Menon (India) declared that the present institutions did not appear to provide the needed

bridge to lead the territory toward a Parliamentary system of government as envisaged in the March, 1953, declaration of the New Zealand Government. The deficiencies of the present institutions should be looked into, he . said. ~ Mr Menon said that if it were the aim of the administering authority to have the Samoans take over the management of their own affairs, then this intention should be made clear to the Samoan people. r . The Samoans must accept this view, so that when the constitutional conventions met later this year the question before the Samoans would not be whether they would take over, but how this was to be accomplished. He urged that the “Samoanisation” of the services should be speeded, and suggested the possibility of some form of association of the territory with that part of Samoa administered by the United States. Dr. Valentin Oberemko, the Soviet delegate, called for immediate steps to give self-government to the Samoans. He said that the government of the ; territory was still in the hands of New Zealand. , ~ , , The Legislative Assembly had no ■ legislative power and nothing was • being done to change the matai, or . tribal system, to a modern structure, ' he Scott (New Zealand) said that the New Zealand special representative would reply tomorrow to the ; statements made in the general I debate.